A Different Kind of Lee
by leafs nation
Summary: After Lee's death, Clementine struggles to make do on her own in this messed up world. That is, until some redneck in the forest finds her and introduces her to the gang. Can she adapt to this new environment? And more importantly, can she ever move on from losing one of her greatest friends?
1. Who's this guy?

_Hey all, so I think I'm going to take a little different approach to both the video game storyline as well as the TV show storyline. You'll see how that happens soon enough, I hope you like it!_

The first light of day broke through the trees that Clementine was laying under; the bright rays making her squint and rub her eyes. She'd been lucky to find an area that wasn't completely infested with walkers, as ever since she left Savannah it had been a struggle just to survive. Not that it wasn't a struggle before though of course. Clementine just hadn't been forced to do so on her own before, and she slightly grimaced at the thought of it.

_Flashback…_

Christa and Omid were killed in their sleep by a group of bandits during the night. They had set up camp after they fled the town, and were completely sure that nothing would be around that would hurt them. 'How wrong they'd been…' Clementine thought, as she recalled waking up in the middle of the night to Christa's muffled screams of terror, and Omid's desperate attempts to kill the brute that was attacking her. He never made it five feet before the gang leader shot him in the head. Clementine had to sit and hide in the surrounding bushes for the entire night until she was sure the bandits were gone.

As she checked the remains of her friends and former caregivers, tears welled up in her eyes as she saw the awful mess that those monsters had left. Blood was spilled all over the campsite, the tents and backpacks were pillaged (including hers), and bullet shells littered the ground near the bodies. Clementine buried her face in her hands and plopped to her knees in front of Omid. They didn't deserve this. Nobody did. They had been so nice and caring for her, and in one fell swoop their lives had been taken. "Why are there so many bad people now?" Clementine said aloud to herself.

_End flashback…_

She still didn't know the answer to that question. She was terrified of the lurkers already, so the thought of not even being able to trust regular people made her sick. 'Well, not all of them are bad at least,' Clementine thought, with her memories of Lee coming back to haunt her.

"Lee… I'm sorry… so sorry…" Clementine said as she chucked a stone at a nearby tree.

"Who's Lee?"

Clementine almost fell over in shock. Breathing heavily, she pulled out Lee's old gun and swung it around, desperately trying to find whatever stranger had crept up on her.

"Wh-who are you? Show y-yourself!" she yelled out, her hands trembling around the base of the weapon. Her eyes grew wide as she noticed movement coming from some bushes, as a tall man with some kind of torn-up uniform came out his hands raised in an effort to calm the child.

He knelt down slightly to match her level and fixed his gaze upon the young girl's. "Sorry miss, that probably wasn't the best way to come over here," the man smirked slightly and started again, "why don't you put that down so we can talk?"

Clementine shook her head furiously and continued to point the gun in the man's direction. No way was she going to risk her safety again by putting her trust in some stranger out in the woods. She'd already had enough of that when she was kidnapped by that madman back in Savannah, before Lee came to save her.

"Can I ask you your name at least? Then maybe you'll see I'm not a threat."

"C-Clementine…" she stumbled across the words, as if she hardly knew who she was anymore. She sure as hell wasn't the same girl that she was a year ago. 'Swear…' she reminded herself, but then focusing right back on the man.

He smiled again and replied carefully, "That's a nice name. Nice to meet you Clementine. I'm-"

_BAM!_

He was interrupted by a loud gunshot and the groans of some nearby walkers coming from the northeast. Clementine turned in fear at the sound, she'd had her fair share of those things for one lifetime.

"Clementine, you need to come with me, okay? We can't let those walkers get to us!" His tone was almost pleading, since he had no desire to just leave the young child there. "Please, you need to trust me. I'm set up with some friends of mine not too far from here. My bike is just parked a little ways away."

"Lee told me to never talk to strangers…" Clementine said shakily, clearly not trusting the person at all.

'Of all the times to listen to your parents…' the man thought, rubbing his hand over his gruff-looking face. "Come on, Clem! I can't leave without you. The place is safe, I promise. But we have to go now!"

Clementine quickly studied the man and realized she didn't have much choice. Either go with the stranger or become monster food. Her only option was to go, as she definitely didn't want to be a walker's last meal.

"Okay…" she said with uncertainty, running up through the brush to join him on the other side. Together they sprinted across, jumping over tree roots and an occasional decaying body. Even though it was early morning, Clementine couldn't see very well. The summer leaves were thick and dark green, blocking out most of the light. 'I really hope this guy's as good as he said he was,' Clem thought as she ran past more and more death, 'I wonder what Lee would do? He always knew what to do…'

Clementine wiped away some of her tears with her sleeve, still not having completely come to terms with Lee's death. To be fair, it was only a few months ago, and she was only nine years old for crying out loud. Nobody could really blame her, that is, if there was anyone around that would be able to. She learned almost all of her survival tactics from him, but it was still a miracle that she was still up and around. The limited amount of food that she gathered from Christa and Omid's campsite that day, she had rationed so that she'd have just enough not to die of starvation. She had one old, plastic water bottle that she kept with her all the time, and Clementine reused it at a nearby river that ran through a large stretch of the forest. Clementine was always keen on reusing used things, and was actually the class garbage inspector at her school before the world went to – well, you know.

The water bottle was kept with a bunch of other things in her backpack, and she would never think to leave it behind…

"Oh no!" she whispered as she realized the bag was still sitting back on a log near where she slept. Clementine slowed her pace behind the bearded man and turned around worriedly. Instinctively she started back through the forest, completely forgetting about the walkers that were slowly gaining on the pair of them.

Meanwhile, the stranger kept running ahead, thinking that Clementine was following him. "Alright kid, we're almost there. I can see the motorcycle just across the stream. Come on let's…"

He turned around and to his horror the little girl had disappeared. Had she tripped and gotten stuck under a tree somewhere? Or worst of all: had one of the walkers gotten to her? "Shit," he said to himself, "come on, Clementine, where the hell did you go?"

Thankfully, the man's tracking skills were still up to par, and as he traced his steps he noticed some small footprints that lead back to where they were before. He had to smack a couple of mosquitoes from his face as he raced on ahead, swearing to himself that if they ever got out of here alive, he was going to get piss drunk back at the prison…

Clementine huffed and puffed as she swiped away branches with her hands, desperately trying to find her bag. The path seemed different to her as she ran, and an unfamiliar stench had spread its aroma around her. It smelled like… rotten skin? And blood too, she could tell since she'd been smothered in it in order to escape the monsters in Savannah. Clementine was terrified, as not only did she realize she was completely lost with nobody to help, but that there were a whole bunch of walkers looking for a snack.

She decided the best course of action would be trying to hide and holding her ground, since there was no use going deeper any longer. She crouched behind one of the logs and pulled out the pistol, looking for any sign of movement. It seemed like she was in a daze, and time seemed to stand still as another groan screeched out into the air. Left and right she looked, twitching each time the sound came again.

Suddenly, the shadows of three walkers creeping towards her could be seen. There was no time for hesitation, so she quickly aimed upwards towards one of their faces and pulled the trigger, all the while closing her eyes tightly. Clementine still didn't like doing it, even after all these months of death and destruction.

Turning her head to the side and opening one eye slightly, she sighed as she noticed the decaying body, unmoving and spread out on the ground. Maybe she'd be lucky and would get away unnoticed for a change. But suddenly she realized that there were three shadows, not just one. She slowly stood up and looked to see if any more of them were coming up behind the fallen walker.

'Nothing,' she thought to herself, 'where could they have gone?'

Clementine scanned the area again to look for any sign of life (or death she guessed, she wasn't really sure what it was anymore) but once again found it empty except for a squirrel that happened to sneak by. She sighed in relief and sank back down, only to shriek in horror as a walker tried to grab a hold of her arm.

Desperately she swept the monster away with the end of her gun and tried to squirm away, only to trip over the log she was hiding behind and drop the pistol out of reach. There was no escape now, as three more walkers approached the scared nine year old. Shielding her face with her hands, she tried kicking one of the stupid creatures in the face. Unfortunately, the thing grabbed her foot and slowly went to try and bite her.

"LEE!" she screamed out, waiting for the inevitable pain that would come next.

But, it never came. Instead, she put her hands down and saw the walker with a large crossbow bolt stuck in its head, and the same man that she was running with, desperately grappling with the three remaining beasts.

Clementine's eyes widened in surprise as the stranger expertly shoved his knife into the back of a walker's neck, and then shoved that walker forward onto another walker. They tumbled onto the dirty ground, each trying to gain the upper hand on the other. Clementine noticed that the remaining walker was about to clamp onto the back of the man, so she ran over to her pistol located a few feet away from her.

The stranger lodged his knife into the head of the second walker in the dirt, but then heard a loud bang and felt a dead weight land on top of him. He smirked at Clementine as she held the smoking weapon, who felt like she was about to burst in terror.

The two of them just stayed in their positions, unmoving and out of breath, until the man spoke up.

"Nice shot kid," he complimented with a nod, "but do you think you could help me out here? I feel like a walker sandwich."

Clementine noticed what he meant and laughed. The stranger was stuck in between all four of the dead walkers, with him being the meat of the sandwich. She hurried over to him and shoved the top walker off of him.

"I guess he was the bun," she replied with a grin, as the man shook his head in amusement and rolled to his side. "You've got some guts trying to take these on by yourself, I'll give you that. But how about next time we work as a team, alright?"

Clementine nodded and helped him up. The man stretched out his body a little before asking, "What were you doing out here anyway?"

The girl stared at the ground, not looking at him and rubbing her arm sheepishly. "I needed to get my bag; it had all my stuff in it. I tried looking for it, but I got lost and heard the walkers coming, so I tried to hide," she explained, pointing over to the walker she had first shot. "He won't be coming back anymore."

The muscular man seemed impressed. "Maybe we should be calling you Little Ass-Kicker instead," he exclaimed with a chuckle.

"Swear…" Clementine said, looking straight into the man's eyes.

"My bad, I guess," he replied, turning towards a path, "come on, with a little luck, the bike should still be there."

The pair wandered down the dirt road, with Clementine following closely behind this time. She still didn't fully trust this person, but so far he seemed nice. He also cared enough to come back and find her, which was also a bonus. But she couldn't help but be a little weary of the man, as he looked like he might have been a troublemaker. He had a leather jacket on with the sleeves torn off, and the crossbow she had seen slumped over his shoulder. The fact that he came in a motorcycle didn't help much either, as her parents had specifically told her when she was younger that motorbikes were dangerous to ride if you weren't careful.

"What's your name?" she asked, realizing she didn't even know who she was travelling with.

As they reached their destination, the man started to check his engine and such before he answered. "Darrell," he answered, returning to the bike, "Darrell Dixon."

"Okay," Clementine said with hesitation, "Darrell, is your bike dangerous?"

Darrell chuckled as he revved up the engine. "Not that I've seen so far," he commented, patting the seat behind him, "climb on board."

Clementine was extremely nervous, but eventually nodded her head and waited as Darrell lifted her onto the back. She yelped and wrapped her arms around him in a frightened manner as he cranked up the engine again. "Don't you have helmets? Or pillows or something?"

"Nope," he replied, slowly moving the bike forward and back onto the road leading out to the countryside. "Just hold on tight, we'll be at the prison soon."

"Prison?!" she exclaimed, "You're a prisoner? You never said that!"

Darrell just shook his head and sped up along the road. "I'm holed up with a bunch of people there. You'll like it, it's safe and there's other people to chill with."

"Chill? You mean, like, there's a freezer inside?"

"Oh man…" Darrell chuckled as he drove down the road. This was going to take some time.


	2. Long road ahead

According to Daryl, it was about midday by the position of the sun, and they weren't even halfway to the prison yet. Clementine sighed when she heard this, but it was quiet enough that her companion couldn't hear it over the roar of the motorcycle. She was so sick and tired of constantly moving around. That was what her life had become: set up a temporary campsite, stay for a little while, and then pack up and move on, careful to erase any traces of her being there in case one of the walkers picks up her scent. When was it time to stop and actually live a life in this miserable world?

For a nine year old, Clementine had grown to be pretty wise and insightful. She had to be, not only for staying alive but also because it was Lee's dying wish to make sure she was safe and secure. If taking on this existence and facing whatever obstacles she came across was how it had to be done, then so be it.

Recovering from her thoughts, Clementine glanced around at the scenery. The road ran alongside a massive, beautiful old farmer's field, with patches of grass spreading for as far as the eye could see. It was a wonder how the farm managed to take care of this place over the years.

Daryl noticed her gaze along the field, and grimaced inside. 'Thank God she doesn't know what happened to this place,' he thought to himself, as he remembered all of the friends they had lost to walkers, but also each other.

"I can see a house from here! Why did you guys not wanna go stay in that place?" Clementine asked, pointing to a large white house off in the distance.

Daryl didn't answer at first. He wasn't prepared to go into a discussion of how some of the residents got torn to pieces, another threatened to kill his best friend but ending up getting killed instead… and the barn. He would not bring that horrible memory up again, it was too painful, even for a tough guy like him.

"We did," he answered simply, not going any further.

Clementine just nodded, noticing his demeanor had changed when she brought it up. "Sorry," she said with a slight frown, but she quickly smiled again as she pointed out closer to the fence and yelled, "Look! Over there!"

Daryl glanced over to where she was pointing and grinned a little bit. A pack of four horses had run up alongside them, their long manes flowing in the wind behind them.

"Aren't they pretty?" Clementine asked, her grip on Daryl loosening a bit.

He nodded and continued to look ahead. "Not bad," he replied.

Clementine wanted to just reach out and pet one of them, heck, maybe even ride one of them, but she knew that wouldn't be a good idea. There was no way she could reach, and even if she tried she'd just fall off the motorbike and come crashing into the ground. Instead, she asked a question that had been bugging her for quite a while.

"Daryl," she began, "why don't any animals become walkers?"

He tried to think of an explanation, but ended up with nothing. "I honestly don't know, you'd think they would though right? Actually, some walker dogs or zombie pigs would be kinda cool, don't you think?"

"No, 'cause then they'd be sad…" Clementine answered, looking slightly downcast. "Even if I don't have a family anymore, at least there's something still good left in this world. That's what Lee told me before he… you know…"

Daryl was torn. He wanted to cheer the kid up, but he couldn't give her the wrong idea. He was no caregiver, and he certainly didn't consider himself to be a father, which at the moment he guessed was what this Lee guy used to be. But seeing her like this just made her think more and more of Sophia, and how he swore to Carol that he'd find her. He never really showed it, but seeing her come out of that barn made his heart break in two. He wasn't about to let another little girl be taken out of his life like that.

As dusk came, the two of them decided to set up camp at a random gas station that they came across. It really was random, it was in the middle of nowhere and it looked as though it had been deserted even when civilization was still intact. Daryl set down a bag he had brought with him and took out two squirrels he had hunted earlier.

"It's why I was out there near you in the first place. I was huntin' for food to take back to the prison, and I caught these little guys trying to squirm away."

Clementine had a look of disgust on her face. Sure, she'd had to scavenge what she could from various campsites, but a squirrel? "You want me to eat _that_?" she asked.

Daryl put the skin on the ground and ran the animal along a stick, making a squishy sound that made Clementine's skin crawl.

"Yep. Here ya go, just think of it like a shish kabob," he held out the squirrel on a stick to clementine, who shook her head and backed up. He stuck the meal over the fire to cook it a little bit, and then remarked, "So you can survive out there all by yourself, and kill walkers without any supervision, but you can't eat a squirrel?"

Easing up to the idea a little, Clementine slowly relented. She grabbed the stick and carefully blew on the food to make sure she didn't burn her tongue. Then, she gingerly took a bite out of it, chewing on it a little, before immediately spitting it back out.

"Eww, gross! It tastes like rotten fish!" she exclaimed, trying to hand it back but failing as Daryl shook his head. "You'll get used to it eventually. In time you'll learn that anything edible is better than starving out here."

"I don't think that'll be for a while," Clementine muttered, drawing a picture in the dirt with the end of her stick.

The two of them sat in silence for a while, just trying to keep themselves warm over the fire. Hershel's farmland ended just before the gas station, which meant that the prison was only about thirty minutes away by vehicle. Things were pretty secure there, for the most part anyway. They hadn't heard from the Governor in months, and people seemed to be getting along pretty well. Daryl was seen as some sort of hero back at the prison for rounding up the food all the time, which was what he was trying to do out in the woods there. But he didn't feel like a hero, and certainly didn't want to be. Sure, it was kind of flattering at first, but when kids started asking for his autograph, that's when he knew it had to stop. There was no sense in believing in heroes, since that implied that they were indestructible, and that nothing could stop them (superheroes, anyway).

Shane was right about one thing at least. You had to fight to survive, every waking moment you had to strategize and think about the consequences. Believing in a hero was a terrible idea, since your "hero" could be found dead in a ditch somewhere the next morning.

"What are you thinking about?" Clementine asked, glancing up towards the man and snapping him out of his state.

Daryl stirred up the fire with a large branch he had found in order to keep it going. Luckily the door to the gas station was unlocked, and that some firewood was sitting in a couple of bags behind the service counter. "Nothing. Just umm, the people at the prison. Just wondering how they're doing."

"Are they nice?" Clementine asked with a smile that could break through the darkness. Daryl secretly admired that about the kid, she seemed so optimistic and fun, even in the worst-case scenario.

He nodded slightly and glanced back at the fire. "Yeah, I think you'll like them. That is, of course, if you're cool with staying there? Do you have anywhere to go?"

Clementine's smile turned into a small frown as she shook her head. "My parents died when they went on vacation in Savannah, and Lee, Christa and Omid died after, so I'm all alone."

"I'm sorry to hear that, kid," Daryl started, genuinely apologetic for the loss, "who's this Lee fella anyway? You mentioned him a couple of times but never really said who he was."

"He found me at my house and took me in. I told him I wanted to find my parents, so he said he'd help me find them. We met up with some nice people and ended up on some farm, which actually looked like the one we went by today," she started, shifting so that her arms wrapped around her knees.

"The farmer's son died so we had to leave. It was pretty rough, but we met up with a nice family and headed out to an old pharmacy that used to belong to Lee's parents. We lost some more people then, and one of the walkers almost got me, but Lee saved my life…"

Daryl listened intently to Clementine's story as he pulled out a beer that he found inside the convenience store, opening it and taking a sip. He felt that the world ending was enough of an occasion that a little alcohol wasn't uncalled for. "Damn, this guy sounded pretty dope," after Clementine gave him a puzzled look, he just shook his head and beckoned for her to continue.

Clementine talked about the motel, how they had to ration the food, the fights between Lily and Kenny, until she finally got to the dairy, and how she almost ate human legs (of their friend no less).

"What the hell… what kind of sick people were they? Just when you think people can't get any worse!" Daryl chucked a stone into the fire and grunted. The apocalypse could do some messed up stuff to you, but that was no excuse for cannibalism by any means. She then explained how Lily murdered Carly on the side of the road, and how mad Kenny was when Lee let her back on the RV. Daryl said that he probably would've left the bitch out in the woods, but Clementine told him that Lee did the right thing to do. Leaving her to get eaten by walkers was a fate worse than death.

As the sky started to become filled with stars, Clementine found it increasingly difficult to keep her eyes open. So, she never talked about Savannah, or Omid, Christa, Molly, Chuck or Ben. Vernon would forever remain a mystery, but she was able to talk about how she found her parents as walkers, and that they had to cover themselves in zombie guts just so they wouldn't get eaten.

"So what happened to Lee?" Daryl asked, trying to keep her awake. However, by the time he turned to look over, she was already in dreamland, her little frame slowly moving up and down. He walked over to her and hesitated. He'd never had to take care of anybody but himself before, and he had to do that a lot since his father and brother weren't around anymore (hardly even when they were alive, in fact).

Quietly as not to wake her, he took out the poncho he would sometimes wear, and wrapped it around her. It was the least he could do, as almost all her stuff was left in that bag back in the woods, and there was no way in hell they were going back for it now. He sat back in his spot and continued to stir the fire. He would never admit it, but this kid was starting to grow on him. But he continued to believe that this arrangement wouldn't be permanent. There was no way he was looking after a kid in these conditions; he couldn't afford to be slowed down by that kind of responsibility.

But if this Lee guy could do it, why couldn't he?

_Later…_

Clementine sleepily laid her head back, but immediately shot back up, breathing heavily. "Mornin'," Daryl said, staring straight ahead as to not fall off.

'Wait, fall off? Where are- AHHH!' Clementine quickly panicked as she realized they were back on the motorcycle. Had she been sleeping the whole time?

"When did we get back on the road?" Clementine asked, anxiety poured all over.

"Early this morning," Daryl answered, as Clementine looked upwards. To her surprise, it wasn't even completely light out yet, but the sunset could be seen looming over the horizon; a massive ball of orange and red creeping up over the field. It was a surprise she could think straight with all the noise (which she really wished she had some earmuffs for right now), but she could make out the sound of some birds in the distance.

However, it was way more than just "some" birds, as a massive flock of geese, robins and various sorts of others took off from seemingly out of nowhere. It was as if they were trying to get away from something, which Clementine could only guess were walkers. It had been about five minutes before they were deep into some forested area again, but something was different this time. She could spot some chain-link fences and an old watchtower in the distance, and quickly realized that they'd reached their destination.

Daryl pulled up to a gate that had a bearded man with a silver gun in his pocket, with slicked back hair. Clementine thought he must have been in charge, but she told herself not to trust anybody here. She didn't even know why she agreed to come in the first place, to be honest. And why in the world was she wearing a poncho?

"Welcome to paradise," Daryl joked as the gatekeeper opened it to let the two of them through before some walkers could come inside. Daryl turned off the engine and helped Clementine off the bike.

"Hey Daryl, got some food I see and… a friend!" the man exclaimed, surprised that a newcomer had come into the prison.

"Yeah, this is Clementine," he explained, gesturing to the little girl hiding behind his leg, "Clem, this is Rick. He's not so scary once you get to know him."

Rick shook his head and chuckled. He then held out his hand in a friendly gesture, and said, "Nice to meet you Clementine. We're happy to have you here."

Clementine nervously poked her head out from behind Daryl, and took his giant hand into her tiny one. 'Maybe this won't be so bad after all,' she thought.


	3. Welcome to paradise

"What do you mean you _kicked her out?!" _Daryl asked incredulously, pacing back and forth in front of Rick. They were standing inside of one of the cell blocks of the prison, and Clementine didn't even get to meet one new person before Daryl and Rick got into a heated debate. A strangely familiar old man stood to the side of the two, trying his best to keep Daryl from beating Rick's head in with his crossbow.

"Daryl, she told me herself," Rick tried to explain. "There was nothing I could do. We established this once before: we don't kill our own, ever."

"She made the tough decision! They were on the brink of death, and you and I both know what comes next." Daryl Dixon was absolutely furious. Clementine was sure that she saw steam coming out of his ears, but it was probably her hunger that was clouding her judgement. She hadn't eaten a full meal in weeks, and it was a wonder that she was still able to stand up.

Rick crossed his arms over his chest and looked like he was about to say something, but Daryl cut him off. "I know what you're going to say, but so what?! Carol ain't no murderer, you should know that better than anyone. Hershel can't save everyone, and the only other doctor we have in this place is gonna die too. We're trying to survive here, man."

"And the best way to do that is to look out for each other, Daryl. Killing each other off is the one thing we can't afford to do. When we start becoming like that, then we're no better than the damn Governor or those miserable creatures walking around outside! I need you with me on this man, you know that!" Rick reasoned, exhausted.

Daryl stood there for a second, staring at the ground. Clementine noticed his eyes shifting back and forth, as if he was thinking about what to do next. He then glanced over at her for a second, and his gaze softened. The other people in the cell block who weren't sick had started to take notice of their shouting match, so Daryl grunted and turned back to Rick.

"Well next time talk to the council before rushing off and making decisions that you have no business making yourself. I'm gonna try and find Tyreese before shit hits the fan."

He bumped into Rick as he made his way down the hall, kicking over a garbage can on his way out. Rick sighed and leaned against one of the cells, rubbing his temple and kicking up dust.

'What was that all about?' Clementine thought, kind of frightened that Daryl could get so angry over something.

"Well I'll be! I haven't seen you in a very long time young lady!"

Clementine jumped in surprise as the old man came up beside her. He chuckled and apologized for startling her, and he then re-introduced himself.

"You might remember me as the crabby old man from the farm about a year ago," he started, "Hershel's my name, and you must be Clementine."

Hershel! Of course, she remembered him now. She and Lee went to his farm as a refuge where they met Kenny, Katjaa and Duck. But if she remembered correctly, he was also the same guy who kicked them out after they couldn't save his son.

"I'm sorry…" Clementine tried to apologize, but Hershel just placed a hand on her shoulder and smiled. "No need to apologize over something that wasn't anybody's fault. I see that now."

Clementine smiled. He sure didn't seem like the same person he was a year ago, but then again, neither was she.

"Well, how about I show you around? Rick doesn't seem to be up for it right now, and Daryl, well he…"

"I know," Clementine finished, "he needs some space."

The two of them strolled through the creepy-looking cell block, passing by a group of kids that appeared to be her age, and a black woman who was sharpening some kind of big sword. When Clementine tried to say hi, she just gave a small wave and continued with what she was doing.

"She doesn't seem very happy," Clementine remarked to Hershel as they got to a flight of stairs. "She's been through a lot recently. We all have, in fact. But give it time and you'll have no problem talking to most of them."

The stopped right before the flight of stairs, and Hershel sighed. "Well, this should be fun. Do you think you could help me a little bit?"

Clementine was a little confused at first. He didn't seem like he was disabled – oh. She noticed his prosthetic leg and gave a small gasp. "What happened to it?" she asked with genuine concern.

The elderly fellow rolled up his pant leg to show the full extent of the damage. The replacement limb ran all the way up to his knee, with a few scars protruding up onto his thigh. "Walkers," he explained, rolling it back down. "Rick acted quickly and cut part of my leg off before it spread to the rest of my body. He saved my life, actually."

Hershel looked over to see Rick still slumped on the wall, but his son had now come over to join him.

"Lee tried that, too…"

Immediately shifting his attention back to Clementine, Hershel's eyes grew wide in horror. He had completely forgotten that Lee was looking after her. "Where is he?" he asked in nervously, fearing that he already knew the answer.

Clementine just shook her head. She didn't need words to get the message across, and Hershel's heart broke a little more than it already was. He felt extremely guilty now about kicking those folk off the farm, as there could've been a chance that Lee would still be alive.

"Don't be sad," Clementine murmured, reading Hershel's mind, "He's probably watching over us right now, somehow." Her words somehow brought his spirit and hope back, but only a little bit. He tried his best to look content though, so he dropped the subject and gestured to the first step. "Alright, now let's try to get up here. I swear, these stairs are worse than those damned walkers…"

_Meanwhile…_

Daryl was pissed. Not only was Carol gone (and quite possibly dead by now), but he couldn't find Tyreese either. 'The big lug's probably gone on a rampage to kill all the fuckin' walkers in Georgia,' he thought to himself, chucking a rock over the fence and hitting a walker in the head. Daryl usually went out to the courtyard when he was angry or depressed or conflicted… so, basically he was out here almost all the time. The area was pretty secure; the group had cleared it out a couple of months ago and patched the gaping hole in the fence, preventing any more from coming in that way. Even if there was a big enough group of them that they could knock the fence down, Daryl would have a quick getaway back into the cell blocks. Good thing they moved so slowly.

'Clementine…' he thought with a groan. What the hell was he supposed to do with her? And why did he feel so obligated to watch over her? It wasn't like he was her dad or anything… Daryl was so confused.

The sound of the door creeping open brought him back to reality. Swinging it open was Maggie, who seemed to be pretty upset about something. 'Glenn,' Daryl reminded himself, shaking his head as he realized that's the only thing it could be.

"Is the kid getting better yet?" Daryl called, causing Maggie to turn around and walk over to him.

"No," she replied sorrowfully, crossing her arms and sitting across from him on a bench, "nothing's working so far, and the disease is getting harder to control." She lightly banged her hand on the table in frustration. "This is such bullshit, I can't even go to see him. We could do so much more if we were inside."

"You know we can't do that. Better to stay out here for now."

"I thought you were against Rick's judgements now? Didn't I just hear you two arguing about Carol?" Maggie asked, with a puzzled expression.

A small band of about four walkers gathered outside the fence, hungrily trying to get at the two of them. Daryl watched as they clawed at the metal, the breeze and their weight slowly bending the fence in their direction, which was slightly concerning. "Don't get me wrong, Rick's kept us alive this whole time, so I guess he's doing something right. But kicking Carol out was fucking uncalled for, even if she killed those two."

"Did you know anything about it beforehand? Did anybody-"

"No, Daryl," she cut him off, "it happened while you were out getting medicine. I'm sure she's fine, though. She's tough, Daryl."

"Hmph, save your sympathies. Keep them for Glenn, and make sure he gets better." He then chucked another stone, this time at a different part of the fence; the noise spreading the walkers out a little bit.

Maggie twiddled her fingers around as she remarked, "So, I saw that you brought that little girl in here. You looking after her?"

"She's tough, she can look after herself…" he mumbled, slowly taking an arrow out of his bag and latching it into the crossbow.

Maggie watched him set up the weapon as she asked again, "I could tell. Did you show her how to survive or anything?"

"Nope, that was Lee," he replied, aiming straight for a walker's head. "And before you ask, no, I don't really know who he is – or was, I guess. Apparently he took her in when she was hiding in her treehouse from the walkers."

"That's smart," she remarked, smirking as Daryl launched a bolt expertly into a walker's brain. "Do you think you could do as good a job of looking after her as he did?"

"I told you," he answered quickly as he pulled another arrow out, "I'm not looking after her."

Maggie leaned back slightly with an amused look on her face. "So you would be alright if we let her go tomorrow night…"

His arrow bounced off the top of the fence and up into the air, completely off target. He glared back at Maggie who gave a slight chuckle. "You old softie," she said, patting his arm. "I'm just messing with you, we wouldn't do that to her, Daryl. Or to you, for that matter."

"Yeah, well the way things have been going lately," he said, lining up his target once again, "I find that hard to believe."

Two more walkers fell backwards on top of each other, one arrow having pierced their brains at the same time.


	4. Gone fishin'

"_Clementine…." _a voice called out in the distance, seemingly hollow anddisembodied. The frightened nine year old frantically searched for the source, but all she could see was darkness. No matter where she ran to, Clementine couldn't break free or find anywhere to go, so she just stood in one spot and sank to her knees.

"Wh-what do you want?" she called out, trying as hard as she could to put her brave face on.

Seconds later, the voice returned, this time with more force and volume. "_Why did you do this to me? Clementine…"_

Suddenly, she heard the sound of a gunshot going off, and Clementine huddled away from the noise. For some reason the sound absolutely terrified her.

"I don't know who you are or what you're talking about!" Clementine shouted to the air, wrapping her arms around her shivering form. "Just tell me what you want already!"

"_I WANT REVENGE!" _Clementine turned around and screamed as Lee's undead form grabbed a hold of her arm. She tried her hardest to get away, but no matter how much she struggled she couldn't break free of Lee's grip. Lee's walker slowly pulled her closer and sank his teeth into her neck like a vampire, with Clementine screaming in pain until –

"AHHH!" she yelled out into the darkness, her breath heavy and beads of sweat crawling down her face. She felt someone gently touch her shoulder, so she panicked and swung her arm in the direction of whatever was doing it, hearing a smack and a slight wince of pain.

"Geez, kid! It's only me, Daryl! Oh man… you should take up boxing or something, that one hurt…"

"Oh no, sorry Daryl!" she apologized, wrapping her arms around the man in a slight hug. Daryl was kind of surprised at this reaction and did an awkward-looking pat on the back, and he then lifted up the lamp he was carrying to give some light to the darkness.

"You alright Clem? You were shouting and swinging your arms in your sleep."

"Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, pulling the bed covers over her knees, "just a bad dream is all."

Daryl nodded slowly and reached down into his brown leather bag. The man pulled out a slightly bruised apple and tossed it to her. "Try to save some for the morning; we don't have a lot of those left."

Clementine nodded and thanked him, but she also offered half of the fruit to Daryl. He shook his head, explaining how she needed to keep up her strength in case anything happened to this place. "Plus, I didn't really think you wanted to eat another squirrel today, judging by how much you enjoyed it last time," he stated sarcastically, "now try to get some sleep. I'm heading out to gather some more food for the group, so I'll probably be back around dinner."

"Can I come with you?" Clementine asked, her eyes wide and pleading.

"I work alone, Clem."

"But I wanna learn how to hunt like you do! We can be a team, like Batman and Robin or something! Please?" she asked, folding her hands together and begging him to take her with him.

Unfortunately for her, Daryl was a pretty stubborn son of a gun, and once he was set on something, there was almost no talking him out of it. Clementine wasn't winning this argument today.

Or at least he thought.

_Later that morning…_

"You sure you don't need me to come along?" Michonne asked, leaning on an oak tree in front of Daryl's truck. He was starting to wonder if he was a kid again, with all these people worrying about him lately.

"Nope, I'm good," he replied, chucking a bag of equipment into the back of the truck. He could've sworn he heard an "ow", but quickly shrugged it off and said, "Try not to get eaten by walkers while I'm gone, eh?"

"I'll keep that in mind," Michonne said with a smirk and a shake of the head. She had slowly warmed up to certain people of the group over the months, Daryl being one of them. They both knew the tools of surviving, and had a silent agreement that they would watch over each other's backs. So Daryl heading off into the woods alone _again _wasn't helping matters. Daryl gave Michonne a nod as he climbed into the driver seat, but then thought of something before he left.

"Would you mind keeping an eye on Clementine for me? I just don't want her – "

"Doing anything you would do?"

"Shaddup, thanks," Daryl chuckled as he started backing the truck up and waiting for her to open the gate. As she did so, a walker strolled on through, looking straight ahead for a meal. Daryl simply ran the thing over with the truck and kept going, while Michonne finished the job with her katana.

Daryl planned on going out to an area that he hoped wouldn't get him into trouble, for it was pretty close to Woodbury. He was pretty sure that the town was abandoned, considering all the people that came to the prison after Andrea was killed. Still, there wasn't any point in taking chances, especially with that madman the Governor.

Having reached his destination, Daryl pulled up near a small river with a roaring waterfall right next to it. _Fish it is, _he thought, poking and prodding in the trunk for his fishing net. The rods had snapped when rick accidentally ran them over with a car, so he was going to catch salmon the old fashioned way.

Seeing the net, he took the plastic container and pulled it out, tossing the box to the back as he did so.

"Ouch!" cried out a muffled voice underneath a ratty old sheet. Daryl just looked up at the sky and swore. "Clementine, what the hell did I tell you?! You're supposed to be with Michonne!"

Clementine lifted the tarp off herself and grinned sheepishly, having been caught catching a ride. "I didn't want to stay there, it smells funky."

Daryl just rubbed his temples and groaned in frustration. This kid was definitely as persistent as he was, he'd give her that. Giving in to defeat, he motioned for her to come along.

"Prepare to get soaked, kid."

"What do you mean – AHH THAT'S COLD!" she yelled, surprised by the sudden change in temperature. Daryl just laughed and handed her a fishing net.

"Okay, when you see a fish, try not to make too much noise, and then quickly scoop it up with your net. Like… this!" he said as grabbed a fish and snapped its neck. Thankfully, Clementine had seen enough death that this wasn't really a problem, and the waterfall broke the noise anyway. "Your turn, Clem."

"Ok," she said confidently, looking around for any fish to fry. But after several minutes and no sign of life other than the two of them, she was getting pretty impatient. "I think you took them all! There's none left down here."

"Well alright, let's move on up to the top of the waterfall. The salmon like to swim upstream." The two of them crossed over to the riverbank, making sure to go as quietly as possible to avoid detection. It wasn't a completely perfect day to be fishing (and honestly Clementine felt kind of silly fishing like this, with a tiny little net instead of a rod), but it had to be done. A couple of rainclouds weren't going to stop this dynamic duo ("It's Batman and Robin! Remember?" Clementine remarked). Daryl was going to have to think up of another name, as she already used that saying like seven times that day.

"So, what was your life like before… all this?" Clementine asked, waiting in anticipation with her net in her hands.

"I lived on my own mostly. My brother and dad weren't really ever around, so I just tried to get by," he replied, kind of regretting the fact that he didn't have much of a relationship with Merle at all. "I guess you don't know what'cha got until it's gone. What about you?"

Clementine stared out into the distance sadly. She really didn't like talking about her family anymore; it just hurt too much. But since she asked first, she had to say something about them other than the fact that they were now walking around aimlessly in Savannah.

"I used to live with my parents back home. It was pretty nice; I just finished grade six, and we were gonna have a big ceremony thing for my whole class, but we never got to."

"Were you an only child?" he asked, rubbing his hair out of his face.

Clementine nodded in response. "Yeah, I loved my parents, but sometimes it got kind of lonely without any brothers or sisters. I asked them if they could have another kid, but all they said was they'll talk to me about birth when I got older. Do you know what they meant?"

"Nope, no idea," Daryl lied, immediately turning to find some fish. Telling a child about the miracle of life really wasn't something he wanted to do, and knowing Clementine, she'd only have more questions than answers anyway.

Twenty-five minutes had passed, and still Daryl was the only one to have caught anything. Clementine was so discouraged that she was about to toss her net over the roaring falls. She was sure that she was doing everything Daryl had done, so she could only come up with one conclusion.

"I think you cheated! You picked the spot where all of them were, and maybe you've got food in your pocket so they came to you first!" she called out, chuckling at Daryl's shaking head. Oh well, at least she could pretend that she caught some for the rest of the group.

Clementine was beginning to relax in the company she was with. Daryl seemed like a decent guy now, and not just some scary-looking goon out in the woods. She also liked Rick, Hershel and Maggie, but she hadn't really gotten to know Michonne yet. She had a feeling it wasn't going to start off well seeing's how she snuck off to hunt with Daryl.

It wasn't that easy to talk to Carl as much as she thought it would be. Every time she tried to, he would brush her off or say he was too busy to talk. Clementine wondered if something had happened to him recently. Or perhaps it was that thing her mom talked to her about when she asked about older kids, something called… hormones? She couldn't remember if that was it, but she'd be sure to ask him when they got back.

Daryl, on the other hand, had walked onto the shore and began counting out the number of fish to make sure that everyone would get a decent meal tonight. Some were still flopping around trying to escape, so he held his arm over four of the fish while he arranged the rest with his other arm. "Hold still, ya little buggers…" he murmured, silently cursing himself for leaving the bucket back at the prison.

"Hey Clem! Could you help me out here for a sec? I need to tie them together and leave 'em to dry," he called out, but didn't get any sort of reply. "Clem? Yoo-hoo, earth to… Clem…"

Instantly, rage boiled through his veins, and he immediately reached for his crossbow, only to freeze as a gunshot was fired right at it.

"Don't move," the voice commanded, motioning for Daryl to get on his knees and put his hands behind his head. "You reach for your crossbow, and she dies."

Clementine shivered in terror as the psychopath held his arm around her shoulders and a pistol aimed at her head. There was no use in running, as this guy had an extremely sturdy grip, and it looked like he wasn't bluffing. Any movements and that would be it.

"You fuckin' touch her, and I swear to God…"

"You'd best keep your mouth shut before something bad happens to the two of you!"

Daryl despised this man. There was no way he was going to lose Clementine to this murderer, so he had to think quickly. Secretly glancing about his surroundings, he noticed that he had at his disposal a rock, the fish, and… more fish. Shit.

"Come on man, you don't want any more blood on your hands. Just let her go, and we can sort this all out."

"Ha! You sound like Rick," he chuckled mirthlessly, pointing out to him with his gun. "What has he been filling your heads with? That we can all live together in peace? That even though every day is an absolute shit-storm outside, we can still retain our humanity?"

He shook his head, with a crazy look in his eyes that could've only come from a person losing everything they loved. "You should know better than anyone that's a load of crap. This isn't the same world anymore, Daryl. It's survival of the fittest now, and the less trust you put in others the better."

"Listen, Governor-"

"DON'T YOU DARE CALL ME THAT!" he bellowed, rage building inside him now as well. "That man is gone, corrupted and destroyed by your people. And now you're all going to pay a terrible price,"

Daryl lifted his hands in front of him in a peaceful manner, trying desperately to keep the lunatic from shooting Clementine. "It doesn't have to be that way, man. Our groups can just ignore each other. Hell, we can pretend that we don't even exist! Just please let her go!"

The Governor (or Brian, as he called himself now) just looked at him incredulously. He was absolutely certain that they couldn't do that, and he was dead-set on one thing only. "Rick will give me your prison, Dixon. Now that I've got three hostages…"

"What the fuck do you mean three hostages?!"

"Whoa, whoa, language my boy! And it's honestly none of your concern, I'm just going to persuade Rick to hand the prison over without any bloodshed. And if that doesn't work, well…" his grip on Clementine tightened and she let out a little squeal as he spoke venomously again, "let's just say your little friend will be seeing her last sunrise tomorrow morning."

Now, if Rick or Hershel or Carol had been in this situation, they probably wouldn't have said what Daryl did next. But honestly the man just didn't give a care anymore; this madness had to end now. "Over my dead body," he said in a way that actually sent chills up Brian's spine. However, he quickly recovered and chuckled in disbelief.

"Very poor choice of words there, my friend."

"NOOOOOOO!" Clementine screamed as Daryl's eyes suddenly shot wide open, and he slowly fell backwards into the river. She continued to belt out Daryl's name as he floated down, and suddenly felt the blow of Brian's butt-end of the gun hit her forehead, as she passed out into blackness.

As the Governor lifted Clementine onto his shoulder, he smirked as he watched Daryl fall over the waterfall and disappear.

_Hey guys, hope you've liked it so far! Sorry that this isn't exactly how it happened in the TV show, but I wanted to see what would happen when Clem got involved. Anyway, reviews would be much appreciated, thanks! _


	5. Spirit walker

_Ok guys, just bear with me here… This chapter might be a little odd at first, but you'll see where I'm going with it :) Enjoy! _

It's a pretty odd feeling, this dying thing. One moment you feel an intense, gut-wrenching flash of pain that encompasses your whole body, but then – poof. Nothing. No pain, no feeling whatsoever, and it's like you're falling through time and space for all eternity, except that you don't notice any of it. Kind of weird to wrap your head around, isn't it?

Daryl was pretty sure that's what was happening, mostly because he could tell right away that the Governor shot him somewhere in his abdomen. But also, there was the fact that he felt this absolute emptiness inside of him. It didn't feel great by any means, but hey, it was kind of relaxing! He figured he could use a break from real life, after all, who would be left to grieve for him after he was gone? His whole family was dead, and the people at the prison weren't a real family. Sure they stuck together and looked out for each other, but there were no real bloodlines between them.

Daryl gasped as stared at his still body lying at the edge of a riverbank. He definitely wasn't breathing, and blood was pouring out of the gunshot wound. _Bastard, _he thought, silently cursing Brian with all the colourful insults he could think of. The Governor wasn't the most concerning thing right now though. How was he able to see himself on the ground? Why was he becoming transparent? How was any of this possible?

'_Am I a ghost?'_ he thought grimly, staring at his hand and seeing a tree on the other side. He was pretty sure he was dead at this point, but there was one more test he had to do to be sure he was a spirit. He bent his knees, and then jumped powerfully over to a tree, trying to go straight through it.

Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well.

He hit the tree with a loud _thud_, and grunted in pain and rubbed his pounding head. _'If I was still alive, I'd have a friggin' concussion by now…'_

Lifting himself up, Daryl sighed and decided that being a ghost was definitely not as fun as he thought it'd be. So much for all those Scooby Doo shows he used to watch as a kid…

The sky was getting dark now, with stars dancing across the nighttime. That was one good thing about cities and towns not having electricity anymore; you could actually see all the stars, and were there ever a lot of them. Glancing back at his fallen body, he was starting to get curious.

'_Why am I not…'_

"So, you must be this Daryl fella I've kept hearing about."

If a ghost could get scared shitless, Daryl was definitely at that point, falling backwards in surprise. Standing before him was a tall, black-skinned man (though it was hard to tell because you could see right through him), who wearing a stoic face. He offered his good arm to Daryl, who nervously took it with a nod of approval.

"Sorry for startling you man, I know the feeling of first becoming a ghost. It ain't easy," the apparition explained, trying to ease Daryl into the conversation. If Daryl had been paying any attention to what the man said, he might've said something back. Instead, he was left speechless and shocked at what he was saying.

"How are you even…"

"Talking to you?" Daryl nodded, and the spirit went on. "I'm not really sure, but I know I can only talk to people like me. I've tried it on real people before, but they can never see me."

Daryl leaned back against the tree that he ran into and ran his fingers through his hair. This had to be a dream. There was no way any of this could be happening. He closed his eyes tightly and tried smacking himself in the face to wake up, until the man held one of his hands.

"Come on man, you're just looking stupid," he reasoned, "you ran around killing undead monsters for over a year, and you're shocked to be talking to me?"

Daryl chuckled slightly at that. The guy did have a point at least. If he really was dead, then he guessed that he wouldn't be the only ghost lying about in the afterlife. He wasn't religious at all (heck, he was pretty sure he was an atheist), but that didn't mean there wasn't some stuff people couldn't explain with science, he guessed. Daryl decided to play along at least for a little while to understand what was happening.

"So, I'm guessing you're a ghost then?"

Said figure held his arms out wide and shrugged his shoulders. "'fraid so. I guess that's what happens when you get bitten by one of those things. By the way," he gestured down to his severed limb, "cutting your arm off hurts like a bitch, and it doesn't always work. Try avoiding that if you can, aha!"

Daryl squinted to get a better look at the stump. It had been bandaged up pretty well, but like he said, it must've hurt like hell. The bandages looked like they hadn't been replaced or cleaned up in a very long time.

"How did you die, then? From that?"

The spirit shook his head and frowned slightly, as if regretting something that happened. He buried his face in his hands and sighed heavily. "We were doing alright until we hit Savannah," he explained, sitting cross-legged across from Daryl.

"But then everything fell apart. I killed this messed up man who kidnapped her, but then she and I had to leave the hotel. We found her parents in the streets, but they were long since dead."

He could tell that whatever was going on with the guy was traumatizing, but Daryl couldn't follow where he was going with this story. The man was talking to him as if he'd been there with him.

"And then we had to stop in some fuckin' garage. I swear I can remember exactly every word of that moment: "Find Omid and Christa, stay strong, keep that hair short,"". He stumbled with his sentences, letting his emotions get the better of him. The next thing he said, however, rocked Daryl's world a thousand times over.

"I told Clem that she had to put me down, or else I was gonna turn. Neither of us wanted that, so she held up the gun, and she fired. Clem was so brave…"

How had he not realized who this guy was before?

"Lee?"

Lee looked up to Daryl's face then and nodded, as if he hadn't heard that name in forever.

"You're looking after Clementine for me, right?" he asked, a serious expression now replacing his features. Daryl was a little taken aback, as he had completely forgotten what the Governor did with her after that whole charade. Daryl kicked the ground angrily, swore a few more times, and then screamed at the top of his lungs. That bastard was going to get away with so much, and all he could do was sit and watch as his friends were destroyed around him.

"She's tough, Daryl. You and I both know that. She'll get out of this somehow."

"Well what if she doesn't?!" Daryl yelled at Lee, his hands clenching into fists as he glared at the man. "You have no idea what that monster has done to everyone. He's terrorized us, killed his own people, and murdered my brother! AND I CAN'T DO ONE FUCKIN' THING ABOUT IT!"

The wind rustled through the trees as the pair stood silently, not moving or making eye contact. Finally, after what seemed like hours, Daryl asked something that had been burning in his mind for a while.

"If I'm dead, why haven't I turned yet?"

Lee turned to look at Daryl's body, still unmoving and lying on the ground, seemingly lifeless. He waited several moments before answering, "Looks to me like it's not your time yet."

Daryl was confused. How could he be a ghost if he wasn't dead? He was sure that he hadn't eaten shrooms or anything as he fell down the river, so him being high couldn't have been possible.

"I think something's pulling you back to life. Don't ask me, 'cause I don't know for sure."

"When do you ever know?" Daryl stated, crossing his arms over his chest.

Le just laughed and shook his head with another sigh. "Look, this might sound crazy, but I think you might've been meant to come talk to me. It's like it was your destiny or some shit. I doubt you'll remember any of this when you wake up, but I know Clem's in good hands with you,"

Lee then turned back to Daryl's spirit and mentioned in a venomous tone, "Just make sure that fucker dies and never touches Clementine again."

"You got it, boss," Daryl agreed, saluting him in a soldier-like fashion. Lee shoved him jokingly and put his hand on Daryl's shoulder; a promise that he'd watch over them.

As soon as Lee's hand hit his shoulder though, everything went white. A scorching, bright light had enveloped him and was blinding him forcibly. Daryl had no idea what was happening, but once the light dimmed a little bit, the sharp pain in his stomach came back as well.

Daryl opened his eyes and lifted his hand to reveal a dark red, crimson liquid rolling down. He had instinctively put his hand over the flesh wound to keep from bleeding out, but he knew that he needed to patch himself up soon, or else he wasn't going to make it through the evening.

With a sharp yelp, he slowly rolled over to his side and glanced down at the impact. The bullet had gone straight through and out the other side, so he didn't need to worry about any pieces left inside of him. _'Bastard had a worse shot than Andrea…' _he thought, remembering how Andrea had mistaken him for a walker back on the farm.

Reaching slowly into his back pocket, as to not do any more damage, Daryl pulled out a linen wrap he kept with him for just this kind of emergency. Tying the fabric around him with several grunts of pain, Daryl rose to his feet and tried to stand. He grabbed onto a nearby rock and steadied himself. It was like trying to walk with new legs.

Eventually, he got the rhythm of movement down again, and began following the river back up towards the waterfall. Daryl felt like absolute shit, but for once he felt like he actually had a purpose in life. He wasn't entirely sure what happened, but he knew one thing for sure.

The Governor was going to meet his end at the end of a crossbow.


	6. Interrogation

"…alright, I'll look into it… yeah, just keep a lookout. Our guest is going to wake up soon… we need to make sure she doesn't do anything dangerous…"

"But she's just a little girl! How much damage could she possibly do…"

"We can't take a chance… you know what their group is capable of… just lemme take care of it, no harm will come to her, I promise… you trust me, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Brian. Just… stay safe…"

Clementine opened her eyes groggily, and instantly regretted doing so. Her head was absolutely throbbing and she couldn't move her arms around. Was she… tied to a chair? What in the world was going on?

Looking around for any sign of familiarity, Clementine was fearful as she couldn't find any. She was tied to a wooden chair in some kind of trailer, and it reminded her of the one her group was in when Kenny drove them in before Lilly stole it. Clementine was secretly proud that Lee had let her back on the RV, as she thought that leaving anyone to get eaten by walkers was a terrible way to die.

'_Enough about Lee. You need to focus now,' _Clementine thought pulling her back to this terrible place. She tried retracing her steps, and remembering exactly how she ended up here.

She remembered fishing in the river, getting grabbed by the mean-looking man and seeing Daryl fall over the waterfall. All the rest was a blur, with no explanation as to how any of this had happened. Who was this guy? Was he worse than that crazy man from the hotel? He had to be. This was the type of person Lee had told her to watch out for before he… you know.

The voices she heard outside had dissipated, and she knew it was only a matter of time before someone came in here. Thinking quickly, Clementine struggled to reach the knife Daryl gave her out of her back pocket. Her fingers twiddled around the blade, and she yelped a little as she cut her index finger, with blood slowly trickling down the wound.

Clementine bit her tongue to try and bite back the pain as she reached again. There was no way she was going to stay here anymore. She already hated everything about it.

Finally getting a grip around the sharp object, she twirled it around and started to cut her bonds. _'These are pretty thick,' _Clementine grimaced, looking nervously at the door as she heard footsteps coming up to the door. _'Only one thing to do now,' _she thought, pretending to still be tied up and helpless.

Stepping through the door was the same person who'd kidnapped her in the first place. For such a bad man, he had a rather calm demeanor about him, which to be honest only frightened Clementine more. But no matter what, Clementine knew she had to be strong. She couldn't show any sign of fear for him to exploit.

"Evening… Clementine, was it?" the man pulled a chair up to sit directly in front of her. He turned it around so that his arms were resting on the back of the chair and sighed audibly.

"Well, I suppose that wasn't the best way to make a first impression. Sorry it had to go that way."

"It didn't," Clementine snapped, glaring a hole through his one good eye. "You shot my friend in the chest without giving it a second thought."

"Yes well," he started, rubbing his hand through his hair, "he was going to shoot first. Survival of the fittest, I think you should know that by now. He wasn't as good a man as he let you believe."

"I don't believe you," Clementine barked, "Daryl was my friend, and you killed him. There's no excuse, Governor."

He shook his head and banged his hand on the table, making Clementine bounce back a little bit. "What have they been filling your head with, kid? They told you I'm some monster who kills for fun, eh? Someone who'd sooner put a knife through your head than shake your hand? Well my friend, it seems that you've been mistaken."

"Normal people don't shoot each other and leave their body to fall off a waterfall."

Clementine's wasn't holding anything back. Not that there was a whole lot _to _hold back, but still. Her plan was working smoothly enough. Pretty soon, she hoped, the Governor would just get tired of this and move on, giving her an opportunity for her to escape.

It's too bad she hadn't been around Rick's group long enough to know just who she was dealing with here.

Brian folded his hands together and leaned forward. "Here's the deal. I'll promise no harm will come to you if you just tell me what I want to know."

"That's not a very fair deal, mister," Clementine replied, frowning deeper.

"Well, unfortunately you don't really have any other options, I'm afraid. Now would you kindly…"

Brian caught Clementine's hand just before her knife made contact with his other eye. Surprisingly, the Governor didn't even look fazed, as though he'd been expecting the attempt the entire time. "You've got guts, I'll give you that, Clementine. But how about we drop our weapons and talk without violence involved?"

Hesitantly, and shaking with a mixture of rage, shock and terror, Clementine agreed and let the knife drop to the floor. Brian released his iron-like grip on the child's wrist, and Clementine rubbed it tenderly. So much for the plan.

"Look, I'm only after one thing. I need you to convince your friend Rick to hand over his little prison thing he's got running over there. That's all I need, and your group can just go on your way, no blood spilled."

Clementine folded her arms against her chest in defiance. No way was this psycho going to take what wasn't his! "They earned that prison. They fought hard for it. It isn't yours, so _find your own!_" she hissed the last part, tears stinging her eyes and threatening to fall. _'Be strong, Clem. You can beat this world, I know you can,' _Lee's voice echoed in her head.

"I'm afraid that's no longer possible," Brian said quietly, standing up and walking towards the door. "Any final thoughts before it's too late for you and your group, little lady?"

"You look like a pirate…"

The Governor chuckled mirthlessly, shaking his head in disbelief. The kid was even more stubborn than Daryl was. "Can't say I've heard that one before," he said, opening the door. But before he stepped outside into the daylight, he smirked and turned his head back towards her.

"Maybe your friends will be a little more cooperative for me."

Clementine's face went pale, and she started shaking nervously as Brian shut the trailer door behind him. How was any of this happening? She just wished this nightmare would be over already, and she could just go back to living.

'_Lee? Do you ever think things will go back to normal?'_

'_Yeah, I do. Not sure when, but someday. Until then, we need to watch each other's backs and stay safe, alright?' _

Clementine made up her mind right there and then. She wasn't losing anybody else; not to the walkers or anybody else.

_Hey, sorry it's short. Just got some stuff going on right now. Hope you've enjoyed so far!_


	7. Fallen

She had absolutely no idea what was going on. One minute she'd been sitting in the trailer by herself, frustrated after someone had come in and tied her hands back together, and the next she was being blindfolded and gagged.

Clementine didn't like this man, the Governor or Brian or whatever, at all. Not one bit. It was like to him the walkers didn't even exist, and that the real threat was the living people. Why did he need to kick Rick's group out of the prison? Why was he killing people? Shouldn't they have been working together? None of this made any sense.

There was no getting out of this blindfold, especially with the meanie who was moving her along. She couldn't even ask where they were going with the cloth wrapped around her mouth, so she just cooperated. What was the point of fighting these guys anymore anyway?

"Sit down," a gruff voice commanded, and reluctantly she did what she was told. "I'll pull this shit off you when Brian gives the word. Until then, no sudden movements kid, or I put a bullet in your brain."

Clementine gulped. The guy sounded pretty serious, so she tried being as still as possible.

"…so what do we do until then? We can't just sit out here! If they're all murderers in that prison, we'll be like sitting ducks out here!"

"Shut up, will you?! We'll be fine, you heard him. We won't even need to fire off a shot if this goes well."

'_Murderers? That can't be right, they're all nice people! You're the ones taking hostages…' _Clementine thought grimly.

"Yeah, well, I just hope you're right. If all hell breaks loose, I don't want the gunfire to attract a biter and have him chomp into my neck as I'm firing."

All she could hear after that was the rustling of the trees, and she assumed that the two of them had left. She slowly relaxed her muscles and sat down on – whatever it was she was sitting on. The blindfold was becoming very annoying.

"Showtime, kiddo."

Clementine bolted upright as Brian spoke to her and began to untie the gag in her mouth and the blindfold over her eyes. "Sorry about this, but it just made things easier. You're not going to bite my finger now, are you?"

"Give me a reason to try…" Clementine mumbled loud enough for him to hear, but he just chuckled.

"You've got a fire inside you kid, I'll give you that. Now come on – time for you to see what I've planned out here."

The sight that greeted Clemetnine's eyes was enough to make her knees shake. It was almost surreal, and she was beyond scared about what this meant. She stood outside the prison gates, dead walkers all scattered about the ground. The sheer number of dead bodies wasn't what scared her though. Brian had assembled a small army of people, all fully armed with machine guns, and a giant tank was rolling up towards the fence.

"How about we ring the doorbell?" Brian said almost too calmly, as he motioned for the guy in the tank to fire. The man disappeared into the machine, and Clementine wanted to cover her ears for the impending explosion.

To her horror, Brian put his hands over her ears instead, his cold touch sending shivers up her spine. Could this guy read her thoughts or something?

"Umm… Brad? Are you th-"

_BAM!_

The Governor was cut off as the first blast hit one of the prison walls, sending heaps of rubble falling down and a flock of birds flying off into the distance.

Two more shots were fired afterwards, and Clementine screamed in horror for him to stop. For all she knew, her friends could've been killed from any of those blasts, but she knew that thinking like that would only make it real. Brian motioned for Brad to stop, and he let go of Clementine and stood on top of the smoking hulk of metal with his hands on his hips.

To her relief, Clementine saw Rick, Maggie, Carl and Tyreese walk out of the prison, all holding their guns in their hands, as well as a handful of strangers she hadn't met before. But where was everyone else?

"Rick!" the Governor called out, grabbing his attention, "how's about you come down here? Let's have that talk."

In her gut, Clementine had a feeling that none of this was going to end well.

Rick stumbled down the hill towards Brian, but stopped close to a fallen truck (probably so he could hide behind something if they were threatened). He began to speak, but Clementine was too focused on who Brian's men were bringing out to pay him much attention.

'_No… no no no no no no no! NO! NOOOO! Not them, please!' _Clementine thought, terrified as Hershel and Michonne were brought right beside her.

"I'm so sorry, Michonne… I snuck in the back on Daryl's truck and went out fishing with him, but… the Governor, he…. He shot him, right in the chest and he…" Michonne quickly shushed her and tried to calm the girl down.

"We're going to be fine, you hear me? Daryl's a tough son of a gun, I'm sure he's okay."

"But how do you know?" Clementine asked, already knowing that she didn't.

Michonne bit her lip and stared at Rick, trying to find any good news in this god-forsaken situation. Instead, Hershel looked calmly over at Clementine and tried the same tactic. How could Hershel be so nonchalant about everything?

"These are our terms Rick. Either you pack up your people and leave, or I level this entire place to the ground." Brian bellowed, a menacing growl escaping his lips.

"There's no need for any of this," Rick reasoned, beckoning to the fields behind him. "We've all been through hell to get here, you know that. We've all lost loved ones, friends and neighbours. But there's nothing anyone of us can do about it now. We're survivors now, that's all we do. But that doesn't mean we can't work together!"

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," Brian then gestured to his three captives, and Rick's eyes suddenly shot open. "Here's the newest incentive: either you folks pack up and leave, or I kill all of you plus these three."

'_Please, Rick' _Clementine thought, _'don't give into his demands! He's wrong, so wrong!' _

"Just let them go now, and we can both go our separate ways," Rick said, and Clementine could see the fear on his features even from her position.

Brian shook his head, and he couldn't believe what he was hearing. "In case you haven't noticed, I've got an army that's ready to crush every last one of you. And a tank, for Christ's sake! Last chance, Rick. Leave, or we kill every last one of you." He then stepped off the tank and walked towards his prisoners. As another threat, he pulled out Michonne's sword and held it over Hershel's head.

"STOP!" Clementine yelled, catching everybody off guard. The girl felt as though she needed to say something before things got out of control. "Why are we fighting? Aren't people supposed to stick together?"

"Clem, he's not gonna listen! Clem-"

"Shh, Michonne. Let her speak. Maybe this'll change his mind." Hershel reasoned, beckoning for the girl to continue.

Clementine nodded and looked around at all the eyes, making her feel a little nervous. "The world's messed up, yeah! I think we've all got that. But if we fight each other over this place, then how are we any better than the walkers?!"

Several nods from Rick's group and a grin from Hershel gave the sign that they were all agreeing. Even the Governor had lowered his weapon to the side and lowered his gaze, as if pondering what all this meant.

"We can all live together," Rick stated, picking up where Clementine left off. "Your people can live in one part of the prison, and we can have another part. We can work together, or we can completely ignore each other and just go about our lives."

The whole area was silent as Clementine watched Brian mulling things over in his mind.

"I still believe we can build a society from the ground up. We aren't all too far gone here. Sure there are some things we'd need to sort out, and things aren't going to be exactly the same as they once were, but this is our home! We take in all newcomers, and as long as we can cooperate with each other, I think we'll be okay. Most of the population might be gone, but our humanity is what's keeping us going…"

And Rick went on for about a minute after that, doing everything in his power to make sure no violence would start. Clementine even saw Hershel smile proudly at the man, but something about his grin made her uneasy. What was he thinking right now?

"Liar…"

Clementine barely heard the words before it was far too late. The Governor held the sword over top of Hershel and swung down, creating a gaping wound into Hershel's neck. His face went pale, and he desperately started gasping for air as his own blood soaked through his shirt.

Clementine was fairly certain she heard Rick screaming out in rage, but right now, everything seemed like a blur. All she could focus on right now was Hershel – the once cranky old man whom she and Lee had met so long ago, but after everything he apologised and took care of her like Daryl and Lee did. Why did everyone she ever cared about have to die? It wasn't fair! None of this was fair! Why did it have to be like this?!

Feeling an arm sweep her to the side of a bus, Clementine's eyes started to sting, and she could barely make out the figure of Michonne, who clearly had been crying as well. "Stay out of sight, okay?" The little girl merely nodded, too tired to give a verbal response. She just wanted everything to go back to normal, like Lee said it would all those months ago.

Gunfire could be heard all over the place, with bodies flying and blood spilling over the grass. Brad had knocked part of the fence down with his tank and had started firing more shells at the prison walls to try to scare off some of its inhabitants, but to Clementine's surprise more people had come out to join the fray. She saw Maggie and Beth screaming bloody murder as they fired relentlessly into Brian's army of people, clearly distraught from their father's demise. Tyreese was taking cover over by the prison yard, firing at anyone who came close to the kids. But even so, the kids themselves had started firing as well, with Carl leading the charge close by.

It really wasn't much of a surprise that the walkers had started coming out of the forest, what with all the racket that was going on. What she didn't expect to see, however, was somebody using two walkers as a shield to deflect any bullets that were flying towards him, his crossbow waiting to –

'_No way… It can't be! Yes! YES! YES!' _Clementine thought with relief.

It was Daryl all right, that redneck look of his was unmistakeable. The real question was how he got over there and how he had survived that gunshot. But that was a question for another day, assuming they made it out of here alive of course.

Clementine saw Michonne run her blade through the skulls of countless walkers, but she managed to throw a couple of live ones onto some unsuspecting enemies nearby. Clementine was pretty sure that the Governor had duped most of these people into believing they were fighting for a good cause, and it truly saddened her that so many had to die because of one man's selfishness. Speaking of the bastard, he was currently beating the living pulp out of Rick's face, smashing his jaw with his fist over and over again. If Clementine could reach the gun that was lying close to the scene, then maybe she could save him! She knew that she had to try.

Trying to be as unnoticeable as possible (which lucky for her wasn't too difficult, considering how small she was), Clementine scurried through the battle, crawling under a fallen truck. Her hands were still tied together, so getting over there was difficult, but there was no turning back now.

Swinging her legs about to move forward under the vehicle, Clementine gasped as she felt a hand grab her foot and slowly pull her back under. She screamed and kicked about, praying that it wasn't a walker so that the person would feel the pain and let go. Thankfully it was a person, and she heard the man curse and retract his hand. This gave Clementine some much needed time to escape.

She stood herself up and tried to get her bearings. The tank was on her left, with the fallen fences and hordes of walkers and people fighting about. But where was Rick?

Before she could look for him, however, Clementine's shoulder was grabbed roughly by the same man she had kicked a few seconds ago. He shoved the girl to the ground and stuck Rick's silver pistol inches away from her face.

"Nothing personal kid. Just business," the man (who was that Brad guy from the tank) mocked, pulling the safety off and aiming the barrel down.

This was it. After everything she'd been through, this was the day she was going to die. There wouldn't be any coming back from this. She was going to die just like Lee did. _'I'm coming Mom, Dad… Lee…' _ She shut her eyes tight and braced herself for the impact.

But it never came.

She heard a swoosh and a thump, and when Clementine opened her eyes, Brad was sprawled out on the ground with an arrow in the back of his head. Daryl pulled it out and quickly motioned for Clementine to follow him.

"But you were dead! I saw you fall! I saw him shoot you!" Clementine shouted, rubbing her wrists after Daryl had cut the bonds.

Daryl chuckled before answering. "You think that old son of a bitch could kill… me…."

Clementine couldn't look, not that Daryl was letting her anyway. But lying on the ground in an absolutely heart-wrenching display was Hershel; his head a few feet away from his body. Daryl felt like throwing up. What kind of sick, twisted man could do this to him?

They didn't need much time to find the Governor, as Michonne's blade found its way through his sternum. The man gasped in pain, and then fell onto his back in a crumpled heap. Daryl and Clementine put their arms around Rick, whose face was a bloody mess.

"C-Carl… I need to… ugh! Find Carl… and Judith…" he managed to breathe out, releasing himself from their grasp against their wishes. It was too late to try and stop him anyway, not just because they were his kids but also because a pack of walkers had started closing in on them. Daryl handed Clementine a gun and followed Michonne as the three of them fought their way out.

The three of them were a dominating force, cutting through the walkers and any leftover enemies they came across. Their main goal was to find everyone and make sure they were safe. Unfortunately, this was becoming increasingly difficult, as the walkers were occupying most of the prison at this point.

"I'm going back in there," Michonne yelled out suddenly, to the shocked expressions of Daryl and Clementine.

"Are you friggin' nuts?! That's suicide, you know that!" Daryl argued, trying to talk her out of it. But it was no use. Michonne had already made up her mind, and cut through some more walkers to reach Maggie and the rest of them.

"Fuckin' Christ, Michonne!" Daryl screamed after her, giving an apologetic look to Clementine as even in the midst of all this she didn't appreciate the swearing. They had no time to delay now though.

He hated the fact that it was going to be every survivor for themselves, but he needed to make sure Clementine got out of there in one piece. Going back for his motorcycle wasn't happening, as it was back in one of the courtyards at the prison.

'_Only one thing to do now,' _Daryl thought with a groan. After everything they did, everything they worked so hard to achieve, and now it was all gone. They were all homeless once again.

The two of them ran into a forested area, passing through bushes and over logs just like they did a few weeks ago. They were runaways now, and there was no going back for any of them.

As they fled, they could hear the terrified screams of people echoing throughout the area. Hope was all they could hold onto now; hope that it wasn't anyone from the prison that was bursting in on itself.


	8. Hiding

The two of them had been running for what seemed like hours now, neither of them wanting to stop unless they were absolutely sure they were out of harm's way. They didn't speak to each other for the same reason. Somebody could've been lurking in the shadows, or worse – the noise might've attracted more walkers.

The only sounds that could be heard in that forest though were their footsteps and some of the local wildlife that was out that night. Crickets, some owls and a few possums went their way, but as long as there weren't any wolves or bears to attack them Daryl wasn't too concerned.

How could things have gone so wrong? Not only was Hershel dead (and possibly others, who knew for certain?) and the prison was overrun, but now they were all lost with no way of finding each other. For Daryl, this was almost like being out on his own with his brother again, only this time it was with a ten year old girl who didn't annoy the hell out of him.

The full moon shone brightly this night, with no clouds in the sky or winds to freeze them to death. Daryl wasn't really sure if that was a good sign or not. No wind made everything seem louder by comparison, and he saw Clementine jump nervously whenever something rustled nearby. The sooner they found some shelter, the better.

But where the hell would they start looking?

The two of them stopped by a dirt path to catch their breath. They were both exhausted, Clementine especially. Running for your life gave you a sort of adrenaline rush, so you could keep going for as long as you had to. But when the danger was gone, the fatigue kicked into overdrive. A few minutes of rest wouldn't hurt.

"Do you… huff…. Think we'll find everyone else?" Clementine asked, leaning a hand on a nearby tree.

Honestly, Daryl had no idea. And they had come too far now for Clementine to get some bullshit response, so Daryl just told her straight. "Not sure, Clem. All we can do is hope."

Clementine didn't even wince at that anymore. She was used to losing people she cared about now, as bad as that may have seemed. This world had changed her in that sense at least. She still cared about these people deeply, but there was no use dwelling on something you had no control over.

"Come on, ass-kicker. We've got a lot o' ground to cover." Daryl got into a jog as they made their way down the path. This had to lead somewhere, maybe like a little village or something. People wouldn't have made a path that went around in a circle, unless they were really trying to mess with travellers. _'Only one way to find out,' _Daryl mused, rounding a bend.

"Watch out!" Clementine yelled, stopping Daryl in his tracks. Glancing around, Daryl was confused until Clementine pointed to a sharp, menacing-looking contraption sticking out of the bushes on the ground in front of him.

"Bear trap..." Daryl shook his head in disbelief. Some people were laying these things in case a walker happened to stumble by, no doubt. "I think you just saved my life, kiddo,"

Clementine smiled brightly and nodded, walking around the trap and continuing on.

By the moon's position, Daryl could tell that it was getting pretty late. The last thing he wanted to do was sleep in the forest tonight, especially in unknown territory. Thankfully, the path did end up leading outside the forest, and they ended up trekking down a road. Cars were lined up along the streets, their owners either having abandoned the vehicles or lying dead in the driver seat.

"This place smells," Clementine complained, squeezing her nose. "Do we have to go this way?"

Daryl nodded. "We've gotta look around, see if any o' these cars still work. If we can't find the keys, no problem. I know how to hotwire 'em."

"Where did you learn that?" Clementine asked, not sure why somebody would need to do that.

"Don't worry about it. Just follow me." Daryl really didn't want to get into how he and some of his buddies used to break into cars when he was younger, and his trouble with the law as a kid. Best to leave some things in the past.

The two of them went on a sort of shopping trip, looking at all the used cars for sale. Unfortunately, most of these were unusable, and Daryl slammed the door of a Mercedes shut after a body fell out the side. "Crap. That would've been a sweet ride, too."

"What about that one? Clementine asked, pointing to an old station wagon that looked pretty unoccupied. Just to be sure though, Daryl opened up all the doors and the trunk of the vehicle. No use in driving this hunk of junk if a walker would reach behind you and bite your face off.

He sat down in the driver's seat and started to work his magic, with Clementine keeping watch outside.

"Just holler if anything comes…" Daryl mumbled so quietly that Clementine barely made it out.

Crossing her arms over her body to try to keep warm, Clementine sighed heavily. She didn't feel safe here at all. They were a couple of stragglers sitting out in the middle of who knows where, and the place reeked of death. They couldn't even check all the bodies to make sure they really were dead.

Suddenly, Clementine eye's shot open as she heard some muffled voices coming closer to their direction.

"…aha, I wonder how many morons walked over to the bank after everything that happened! What are they gonna do with it, buy groceries or something?"

"Daryl!" Clementine whispered in a panic, "We need to hide, now!"

Daryl listened for the group of strange men, then nodded and motioned for her to hide inside the car. There weren't any blankets or anything to cover them up with, so they had to resort to lying on the floor of the station wagon and praying that they wouldn't look inside.

"Yeah I know what you mean. Friggin' blowhards… They probably got ripped to shreds as soon as they broke inside. Anyway, let's get those supplies and get out of here. If you see any of those dead fuckers just yell."

"Got it,"

Clementine and Daryl stayed perfectly still. They both knew firsthand not to trust anybody they didn't know, and these guys sounded just as bad as the Governor's crew. Out of the corner of his eye, Daryl saw a shadow appear on the dashboard.

"Come on, where is it?" the voice muttered, and Clementine seemed puzzled. That man sounded extremely familiar, but she couldn't place her finger on who he was. There was no way in hell that she was going to open the door and ask him; that'd be suicide. They just had to wait it out.

The shadow faded, and Daryl blew out a silent breath of relief. This was going pretty well. Now just a little bit longer –

_Click! _

"What was that?"

Clementine froze in fear and immediately retracted her foot away from the door. If it hadn't been so ridiculously quiet outside, she might have gotten away with it. But no, the man definitely heard the noise.

Daryl slowly raised a pistol in front of his chest, ready to fire if the guy opened the door.

The shadow returned, and Daryl heard footsteps leading up to the window. _'Just act like you're dead… Just act like you're dead…' _Daryl reminded himself, closing his eyes and hoping Clem was doing the same.

"K! Come over here! We found something!"

"Wait, I'm sure I heard something from this car over here!" the man tapped on the window, and the two of them froze in fear. Things could get really bloody…

"It's just a couple of dead guys, K! Just let 'em rot!"

"I'm telling you, something's in there! And my name's not K, it's –"

"Yeah, I know. But we've gotta get these supplies back to camp. Come on, we're going! Unless you want that hoe to start bitchin' at us about not feeding the kids again!"

With that, the two figures walked off, leaving behind two very relieved survivors. That was cutting it way too close. The sooner they could get to some shelter, the better.

Daryl hopped out about ten minutes later to make sure they were actually gone, and then finished the job on the station wagon. Daryl focused his attention on the road, effortlessly evading the other cars like he'd been doing so for years.

"Daryl?" Clementine asked, breaking the silence that had formed.

"Yeah?"

Clementine twiddled her fingers together before asking, and she stared out the window to see a walker tearing a deer to shreds.

"What's a hoe?"

Daryl was so taken aback that he nearly lost control of the car, just inches away from putting the both of them into a ditch.

'_Why the hell is she asking that?' _Daryl thought, trying to come up with a response that wouldn't scar her for life. Why did she always have these questions that took you off guard?

"Well, it's umm…" he started, biting his lip. "It's a… garden hoe. You know, the rake-looking thing you use to scrape up the dirt."

"Oh, okay. It's just that the scary guy called that lady a hoe. But then, why would she be a gardening tool?"

"Umm, they were probably just kidding around, you know? Just a way to make fun of the person."

Clementine nodded, kind of understanding, but kind of not at the same time. She guessed that it was a grown-up joke, since she had never heard any other kids her age say something like it. But Clementine wasn't just some kid anymore, and she wanted things to be a little funny with all the doom and gloom around here.

"Ha ha!" she suddenly burst out, "You're a hoe, Daryl!"

Daryl actually did bump into another car that time, and silently cursed his luck as Clementine continued to giggle, not realizing what she had actually called him.

Little did they know, the two were being watched from the trees.

"I told you there was somebody in there. Now they've escaped, and they're probably just gonna tell their fuckin' boss where we are or some shit!"

"Keep it down, would you?" his partner hissed, staring after the station wagon with watchful eyes. "I've got this."


	9. Lessons

"So what do you think? Did I find us a nice place or what?"

Clementine grimaced, but she wouldn't let Daryl see it. The place they had stopped at seemed pretty decent on the outside, with only the occasional stray walker that the two of them would have no trouble putting down. It was a tiny little neighbourhood that looked like it had been deserted for months now. Grass had overgrown through some of the cracks in the streets, and a few trees had fallen over into the road. Clementine noticed that one of the houses had its roof collapse from the impact of a rather old-looking tree, and the gaping whole actually kind of frightened her a bit.

However, that was nothing compared to the inside of the house.

As soon as Daryl opened the door, two birds had flown right past their ears, and a whole pack of mice scurried away to hide in the walls. The only light came from the broken window panes, and there was dust _everywhere_. Daryl flicked on a flashlight and started to look through the cupboards for any source of sustenance. They were running out of food since their last run, and animals out in the wilderness were getting more difficult to come by.

"You like Lucky Charms?" Daryl asked, and Clementine laughed as he threw the box over to her. Maybe they'd get lucky and a magical leprechaun would come bursting out of the cereal box…

"AHHH!" Clementine screeched as she threw the box back down in disgust, a rat climbing out in a panic. Definitely no leprechauns in there.

"Damn it…" Daryl muttered, cursing his misfortune as this house was empty too. "I thought for sure we'd hit the jackpot this time. Looks like some scavengers got here ahead of us. Oh well, let's have a look around for any supplies people might have left behind. Holler if there's trouble, okay?"

Clementine gave him a thumbs up, and pulled out her pistol as she carefully maneuvered up the stairs. They'd gotten used to the routine by now. Scout out the building, make sure they weren't being followed, grab the stuff they needed, and move on. Daryl thought for sure that this house would be suitable for them to live in for once, but clearly it wasn't protected enough.

Every step she took, a squeak came from the floorboards. _'So much for being quiet…' _Clementine thought, jogging up the rest of the way. She made a left towards what appeared to be a child's room, and slowly creaked the door open. Nothing stood out in here except for a couple of action figures, and she was about to leave this room be until she noticed a bag strap underneath the bed.

Clementine walked over and examined what contents the bag held. Inside was an old picture frame, some school books, a wallet, some gum and a whole box of granola bars. Making sure there were no surprises in store this time, Clementine shook the box a few times and opened the sealed package. Success! There was even a water bottle inside too! Clementine wondered how and why the scavengers had missed this. Things were finally turning to Clementine's favour for once, and she zipped the pack back up. This bag would have to do for now, though nothing would ever replace the one she left behind. That had her family's picture inside, as well as a whole bunch of other useful supplies. For some reason, Daryl had managed to secure the picture of Lee, though now it was torn at the sides and bent.

Clementine smiled triumphantly and stared out the window, fully impressed from a job well done.

That is, until she was interrupted by the loud growl of a walker coming from behind.

Panicked, Clementine held her gun in front of her and desperately searched for the beast. Where was it coming from? The walker was nowhere to be seen, unless…

The girl opened the closet door and took in a sight that made her vomit onto the floor.

Inside the closet was the walker (no doubt it was the teen who lived in here), swinging his arms around like a maniac. But that wasn't the part that made her sick. What did her in was the fact that the boy was hanging by a rope on a railing inside the closet…

"Clem? You alright- Damn…" Daryl unfortunately had seen this sort of thing before, though not by a kid this young. He ushered Clementine out of the room and shut the door behind her. Without a moment's hesitation, he loaded the crossbow and fired straight into the walker's forehead, putting it down and sending blood splattering against the wall behind it.

Daryl slowly walked out into the hall and saw Clementine slouched down on the floor, her arms wrapped around her knees and tears streaming down her face. He couldn't blame her, that was rough even for him.

"You never fully get used to that kind of thing, I guess," Daryl said, taking a seat next to her. He laid the crossbow down on the ground and glanced over at the depressed little girl. "You okay?"

Clementine shook her head and laid her head against Daryl's shoulder, not bothering to say a word. What could be said really? This disease had destroyed everyone's lives, no matter where or who you were. Clementine had promised Lee a long time ago that no matter what happened, she'd never give up hope. Never.

But how was someone able to keep that up when this sort of thing happened?

"Can we go now?" Clementine asked shakily, "Can we find another place? Somewhere safe this time?"

"Sure thing,"

And so it went. Honestly, Clementine and Daryl had no idea how long they had spent on the road after that. Time wasn't really a priority anymore, and Daryl had all but given up on remembering what day it was after Dale had died. The only thing they relied on to get around now was the map that the previous owners of the station wagon had left in the dashboard, and lucky for them it labelled out the area pretty well.

They hadn't spoken much since the incident, with the only conversations being either about what direction they were going or what their lives were like before the whole world went to shit. But something had been bugging Clementine for a while now, and she figured that since rules weren't really enforced anymore, she could ask her friend the question.

"Daryl?" she piped up, looking expectantly over to him.

"What's up, Clem?"

"Umm… well, since it's really just us out on the road, I was thinking… could you teach me how to drive?"

Daryl came to a complete stop on the side of the road and glanced over to Clementine. She was only ten years old, but if she could shoot a gun and survive on her own for so long, Daryl didn't see why he couldn't teach her the basics of driving this beat up piece of trash.

With an excited expression, Clementine quickly got out of the passenger's seat and sat down in the driver seat, waiting for Daryl to adjust the seat so that she could actually reach the pedals and see at the same time.

"That alright, kid?" Daryl asked, getting a nod from the admittedly nervous little girl. Clementine gripped the steering wheel tightly, but smiled sheepishly as Daryl pointed to her seatbelt.

"Safety first…" Clementine murmured in a sing-songy voice, clicking the seatbelt into place and waiting for Daryl to teach her.

"Alright," Daryl began, pointing to various mechanisms that Clementine honestly had no idea what they were. "That's your clutch, and you use that to put your car in park, neutral, drive and all that. Then you've got your gas and brake pedals down there…"

"Oh, I know this!" Clementine said suddenly, thrusting the car forward and bumping into another car, luckily not setting off an alarm. "Oops, sorry Daryl…"

"Haven't you ever been go-karting or anything before?"

"Umm… no, but I went on the bumper cars at the carnival once! Does that count as driving?" Clementine asked with enthusiasm.

'_Great… that's where her driving's coming from… just my luck…' _Daryl thought with a sigh and a shake of his head. "Let's just start with the basics. So, _before _you give it some gas, you've gotta check your mirrors to make sure you can see."

"Okay!" Clementine stated, adjusting the rear-view and making sure she could see out the side mirrors.

"Good job, Clem. Alright, now can you check your blind spots for me?"

Clementine looked quizzically at Daryl. "But I'm not blind!" she exclaimed, "I can see just fine!"

Daryl rubbed his temples together and had to remind himself that Clementine was only ten years old. _'Keep it together, man. Patience… lots of patience…'_

By the time Daryl had shown her all the pre-driving checks and showed her the first basics of driving, Clementine was starting to get the hang of it. In fact, Clementine was so impressed with her new-found driving skills, she insisted that Daryl remain the passenger and tell her the directions, unless of course they got lost. "Then it'll be your turn!" Clementine giggled, getting a chuckle and a shake of the head from Daryl.

Thankfully, the road they were on was pretty clear, so there really weren't any obstacles that either of them could see.

"What city are we in now, anyway?" Clementine asked, trying her best to keep her attention on the road.

The redneck checked the map again, and proclaimed, "Washington, from the looks of it."

"Really? How did we get so far from Georgia?"

Daryl shrugged his shoulders and stared out the window. It was kind of difficult to see, but if you looked closely enough you could make out the city districts, with the Washington Monument and the Whitehouse out in the distance.

"Ever been to the president's house, Clem?" Daryl asked, still staring out at the old buildings.

Clementine shook her head and looked down at the map Daryl was holding. "Nope. My class went on a trip to a water park once, but never there. Can we go? Pleaseeeeeee?"

As long as the place wasn't completely overrun, Daryl didn't see the harm in it. "Sure thing. Maybe we can find a bomb shelter or something to hide in over there, too. We'll just need to plan ahe – CLEM! LOOK OUT!"

Not noticing in time, Clementine gasped as she ran straight into a walker; its gruesome form gurgling on the windshield. She immediately began pressing buttons to get the bug off the windshield – she'd seen her parents do it a thousand times, so why couldn't she? Unfortunately, the things that happened didn't really get the walker off the car. More likely it just pissed it off some more.

First, the windshield fluid sprayed into the monster's face, maybe cleaning up his teeth a little bit but not actually helping their cause. The next button she pressed had the wipers smacking the beast in the face, which actually was pretty amusing even in this situation. Seeing no other options, Clementine started swerving the station wagon back and forth, despite Daryl's protests.

Clementine then tried to put the brakes on, but the car was swerving far too much. The vehicle flipped onto its side and into a ditch, sending the walker flying across the road with its legs trapped underneath the weight of the car. Clementine groaned and rubbed her head, trying to get her bearings. She really hoped her first day of driving wasn't going to earn the two of them a concussion.

"Ouch… Daryl? Are you okay?" she asked worriedly, putting a hand on her friend's shoulder.

Daryl had a large gash on his forehead, and a few pieces of glass had cut his shoulder open a little bit, but as long as it didn't get infected he figured that he'd be fine. He slowly helped Clementine get out the side door and out into the fresh air.

"I guess we're walkin' now, bud," Daryl stated, grasping his arm in an effort to stop any pain that he felt.

Suddenly, they heard a loud bang and a muffled groan coming from where the walker had landed. At that moment for Clementine, it was as if everything including time and space was standing still. It was like she was seeing a ghost, and she couldn't believe her eyes.

"I thought you were dead…" she said solemnly, her eyes going wide in shock as she trembled against Daryl's leg.


	10. Unfriendly Welcome

This guy had to be a ghost – either that, or Clementine had just completely lost her mind. How was this possible? Lee had told her that he was killed, sacrificing himself so that he, Christa and Omid could escape. Lee said there was no way that he could've made it out of that back alley, not with all those walkers closing in on him.

So how the hell was Kenny standing right in front of them?

"Surprised to see me, Clem?" Kenny asked with a smirk, tipping his trademark hat in her direction as he threw the walker off to the side. Kenny looked… different, and not in a good way. From what Clementine could see, it looked like he hadn't eaten in a while, as he was a lot skinnier and his shirt bagged over his body. His hair had grown a little bit longer than what she remembered, and he had huge bags under his eyes. All in all, Kenny looked exhausted.

"But you… you were killed! By walkers! How…" Clementine stumbled over her words, completely surprised to see anybody from her previous group still alive.

Kenny shook his head sadly and scratched his head with the ball cap. Clearly Kenny survived, but he didn't make it out without serious mental repercussions.

"Ben fell onto a gate-looking thing, and there was nothing we could do," he started, folding his arms over his chest. "I shut the gate on Lee so he could get out of there, and then I had to shoot Ben…"

Clementine nodded. It was hard to accept, especially after everything they went through together, but she'd heard about that over a year ago now. "How did you escape?" she asked.

"I knocked a few of them in the forehead with my gun, and when I saw the opening I just ran. I couldn't even go back to see if anyone else made it out alive. By the way…"

A shake of her head gave Kenny the answer that he hadn't been hoping for. The man buried his face in his hands and trembled slightly. "Omid and Christa were killed by bandits that raided our camp in the night. And Lee… he was going to turn, so I had to shoot him…"

"God's sakes," Kenny sighed, still shaking his head in disbelief. "I thought for sure he was gonna make it. He was one tough son of a bitch, that's for sure. Couldn't have asked for a better guy,"

As Kenny looked back to the two of them, he frowned slightly, pointing to Daryl with his pistol, who hadn't lowered his crossbow since they came across each other. "Is this guy with you, Clem?"

"Yeah," she replied, introducing him, "this is Daryl. He found me in the woods and took me into his camp."

"So, you got a thing for kidnapping little girls, man? Why don't you put down your stupid little toy and answer me like a man?"

Daryl's grip on the bow tightened, and venomously he responded, "Keep talking like that old man, and I'll put two arrows straight through your eyeballs,"

"Please! Stop, both of you!" Clementine pleaded, and reluctantly Daryl did as she asked. Kenny, however, his eyes like a hawk, kept his weapon pointed at Daryl, clearly not trusting him at all. "Kenny, please! You too!"

Tension in the air would've been an understatement at that moment. It seemed that both men were willing to tear the other one to pieces if it came to that, and the only thing keeping them from trying was the girl standing between them.

"I find it hard to believe that she came with you willingly. And even if she did, what kind of a fuckin' role model are you, anyway? Letting a ten year old girl drive a car!"

"Daryl saved my life, Kenny," she interjected, getting slightly annoyed. Didn't Kenny know her well enough to trust her judgement? "I got attacked by walkers, and I was all by myself. We went back to the prison and stayed there for a little while."

"So why aren't you there now then?"

Clementine glanced sadly to the ground, still haunted by the events at the prison. It was a pretty traumatic event for everyone – well, if anyone else was still alive that is. Neither of them had a clue.

"We got attacked by some pretty messed up people," Daryl began, giving Kenny a glare that could burn right through his soul. "Walkers infested the place, the fences and the walls collapsed, and we all got split up. Not sure if anyone else made it out alive. Clem and I ran out and have been on the road ever since."

There was a pause for a little bit, and Clementine was worried that Kenny wasn't going to believe them. She had realized after that whole barn incident where he smashed the racist guy's face in with a salt lick that Kenny had begun to distance himself from the rest of the group. And after his family died, things only got worse.

Finally, he relented and put his pistol back into its holster. "Alright. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, only 'cause you're with Clementine. But I swear to God – you try anything, and I won't hesitate to put you in the ground. Got it?"

"I think we'll take our business elsewhere, big shot," he replied, starting to turn down the road with Clementine beside him.

Kenny looked furious from Clementine's perspective. His fists were clenched and he was marching over to the redneck in a blind rage. Immediately he grabbed onto Daryl's shoulder and started yelling about how stupid his plan was.

Their voices were enough to wake the dead, literally. Clementine wouldn't be surprised if a whole herd of walkers came by after hearing all the racket that was going on. She made a move to try and stop them, but suddenly yelped in pain and grasped her arm.

Immediately Daryl stopped paying attention to Kenny and focused on Clementine, whose sleeve was becoming soaked in blood. How she didn't notice this before was beyond him, but there was no time to lose. "Where's your camp?" Daryl asked harshly, letting Clementine rest an arm on his shoulder while Kenny did the same for the other side.

Kicking the ground in frustration, Kenny shook his head and sighed. "It's five miles in that direction. Come on, I'll show you the way."

By the time the three of them arrived at the location, Clementine's arm was beginning to swell. She wouldn't let either of the two of them touch it, and she just kept it hidden underneath her sleeve. Daryl knew that it would get infected if left unchecked, and that was something that neither of them could afford right now. He didn't think he could take losing any more of the people that were closest to him.

The camp itself wasn't much to look at, even though it sat across from a beautiful lakeside view. There were a few tents sprawled out around a campfire that sat in the middle, and what appeared to be some old coolers and other supplies scattered nearby. A small cabin sat farther away from the rest of the place, all wooden and from the looks of things it must've been abandoned before these people moved in. What appeared to be a small fishing shed of some sort was situated out near the lake as well. Daryl could tell these people weren't too thrilled about Kenny bringing in two newcomers judging by the disgusted looks on some of their faces.

"What the fuck, Ken? You were supposed to be bringing back some supplies, not two more mouths to feed!" yelled a very angry and very much pregnant lady.

"Yeah, Rebecca? Well what the hell did you want me to do, leave them out on the road to die?!"

A younger looking man came to her defense with his arms folded over his chest. "Better they die out there than here! When they turn, it's on your ass – not ours!"

"What the hell are you tal – oh my God…"

Kenny stepped back and looked at Clementine's arm in horror. She had lifted up her sleeve to reveal a massive, deep wound gushing into her forearm, and from everyone else's perspective (except Daryl) it looked like she had been bitten by a walker. Daryl was irate – how could these dumbasses not see that it was from the car? And even if she was bitten, you don't put down a little girl while she's still alive!

As one of the group members started to pull out a rifle from behind his back, Daryl charged forward and knocked him to the ground, sending everyone else on edge. Those that had weapons were now switching their aim between Clementine and Daryl, with Kenny still looking at her arm in horror.

"It… it can't be… not you too, Clem…"

"It's not! I'm not bitten – OUCH! Geez… somebody needs to get me something for this before it gets infected! Please!" she burst out, trying to convince this group of random people to spare her life. So far their decision was pretty obvious.

"You even think about hurting her, and I'm putting every last one of you in the ground!" Daryl threatened, pointing a knife close to the guy's neck.

Another young-looking fellow put his hands up in defense. "There's no need for any of this. We've got a doctor here, he can take a look at your injuries –"

"That's not your call, Luke!" Rebecca yelled, indignant.

Luke shook his head sadly and turned to the older man standing beside him. "Come on, Pete. Back me up here. You know this isn't how we do things!"

Time seemed to stand still before Pete spoke, as I he was mulling over the fate of the two lives standing before him. He gave a hardened look over at Daryl, who relented and put his knife back in his pocket, and then turned towards Clementine with a softer expression.

"Do you know this man?" he asked first, surprising Clementine as he pointed towards Daryl.

"Yes."

"Are you under any kind of duress with him? I mean, is he putting you in danger at all?"

"Aren't we always in danger nowadays? But no, he's my friend. We've been looking out for each other." Suddenly, Daryl noticed, Clementine seemed to be a lot more mature in that instant. He was sure that it was due to everything she'd been through, but right then it seemed like she was becoming more independent than he'd ever seen her before.

Pete nodded slightly and bent down to her level to ask his final question, with Clementine practically bursting from anxiety.

"Did you get bitten by a walker?"

Clementine gave him a stern expression (even though inside she was burning with emotions), and showed him the wound.

"No."

Pete studied the opening carefully, but refrained from touching it in case she actually was bitten. He stayed that way for a few moments before sighing and giving Clementine a small grin. Pete then turned to face the rest of the group as he announced his opinion.

"Well, I trust her judgement. If she says she isn't bitten, then she isn't bitten."

Luke and Daryl looked relieved, but Rebecca and the guy on the ground (whose name turned out to be Nick) weren't pleased.

"How do you know she's not lying?! You ain't the doctor here, Uncle Pete! What happens if we let her into the house, then she turns and eats us alive if we sleep?"

"It won't come to that," Luke reasoned, clearly getting frustrated that these two (plus a guy named Alvin who had heard the noise and come rushing out of one of the tents) were so paranoid about all this.

"Even if something does happen, we can take care of it. We've dealt with worse things than a little girl coming back as a biter before,"

"She ain't bitten! What's it gonna take for you people to understand that?!"

As they argued, Clementine noticed Kenny slowly start to walk away towards the lake, and she couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy. He'd had it pretty rough the last few years, and she thought that hearing about Lee's death and the possibility of her dying too must've been sending him over the edge. He sat along the shoreline and didn't turn back.

Their arguments were getting nowhere. There were three sides going on at once: Clementine and Daryl saying that she's not bitten but that they both needed medical supplies, Pete and Luke trying their best to believe them but not swaying for either side, along with Rebecca and Nick saying either to kill them or send them on their way. Clementine was getting pretty dizzy, too, which didn't help matters in any way.

"Enough!" everyone stopped what they were doing as they saw an Italian-looking man step out of the cabin and make his way towards Clementine. He addressed her wound with a sharp eye, and Clementine could tell right away that this was the doctor they had mentioned.

As all this was going on, Kenny sat alone on the shore, his face buried in his hands. A light breeze ran along the water's edge, and suddenly some ripples started to form in the middle of the lake. The ripples turned to slight splashes, but he didn't even notice. The man was distraught, ripped apart from the inside.

It was very unfortunate that he didn't notice what was going on.

"So, what is it Carlos? Is she bitten?" Nick asked, nervously shifting his feet back and forth.

The doctor paused before turning back to the group to announce his conclusions. "Well, she seems stable for now," he began, frowning at Daryl and Clementine, "but we can't know for sure. We'll stick her in the shed for the night and see what happens. If she's burning up with a fever in the morning, we'll know she's turning and we'll deal with it. If not, we'll stitch her up in the morning and send them on their way."

"You can't be fuckin' serious," Daryl spat, "she needs medicine now! She needs antibiotics and a bandage, not for you to stick her in a fuckin' box! What the hell's wrong with you people?!"

"You people aren't our concern," Carlos warned, trying to sound forceful but not having much of an effect.

Daryl stood protectively in front of his companion. "You ain't putting her in there. Just give us the supplies and we'll go."

"Carlos…" Pete tried to reason, but Nick and Rebecca hushed him, allowing no room for argument. Pete and Luke shook their heads sadly, and allowed them to continue.

"If she lives, we'll know she wasn't bitten. If she dies, then-"

"You're not putting a little girl in there. Don't even think about it," Daryl threatened, pointing his crossbow directly at Carlos' face.

"It wouldn't be a smart move to shoot the only doctor around for miles in the face," Carlos warned, and reluctantly Daryl lowered his weapon.

Daryl Dixon looked down at the girl standing behind him, and saw that she was nodding, as if this was the only way they'd do anything about it. He sighed, then walked back towards the shed with the little girl in tow.

"Wait a minute, where's he going?!" Rebecca shouted behind him.

An icy-cold glare met Rebecca as Daryl replied, "If you bitches are gonna out her in there, I'm not leaving. No exceptions, understand?"

Luke and Pete pushed their way through to the two of them, and walked towards the shed to unlock the door. It was getting pretty late out, but Kenny still was sitting out by the lake alone.

"I'm so sorry about this," Luke tried to say, but Daryl cut him off.

"No you're not. If you really were, you would've done something."

They suddenly looked pretty guilty, and made a hasty retreat back to their campsite after they shut the door behind them. Alone in the dark, Daryl and Clementine sunk to the floor against the walls of the shed, completely exhausted.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the lake, several low moans were starting to make their way to the surface, but once again Kenny didn't notice. He simply stared at his reflection in the murky liquid and sighed.

In the darkness of the lake, a grotesque, mangled hand plunged its way above the water.


	11. This is what nightmares are made of

The darkness of the shed seemed even more frightening that night for some reason. There weren't any windows to let the light of the moon sink in, and the wood was really old so every time a gust of wind blew past you could hear the boards creak. It was light enough, however, that you could see the various tools and cleaning supplies scattered around, most likely left by the previous inhabitants. Thankfully, it looked nothing like the barn at the St. John's residence, which had to have been the most disgusting display Clementine had ever seen.

Speaking of Clementine, she and Daryl sat silent in the darkness – Daryl fiddling around with his crossbow, Clementine with her arms hugging her knees close to her chest.

"Well, this is a mighty fine mess we're in," Daryl commented dryly.

The girl nodded slightly, but said nothing. Her arm still hurt like hell, but not quite as much as it had originally. She knew that if it didn't get treated soon though, it would only get worse. And that's something she couldn't afford. After all, she had seen firsthand that trying to cut off your arm didn't always work with people. Just ask Lee.

"Do you think everyone else is alright? Do you think they're… safe?"

Daryl looked over at Clementine and saw a mix of emotions. Fear. Anxiety. Hopelessness. But above all, she saw exhaustion. They all were tired really, but this world had taken her childhood and tossed it into the flames. There was no longer that happy-go-lucky child he had first seen when they met in that forest months ago. But none of this was due to maturity. This was due to the harsh reality that whatever they did was dangerous, and that every moment was a matter of life and death. Clementine was becoming more of a survivalist than a kid at this point. It was kind of sad, actually.

"I don't know," Daryl replied honestly. There was no way of finding out unless they happened to come across each other. "But we have to focus on protecting ourselves, alright? We can't let worrying about them distract us from surviving."

"So we're just going to give up looking for them?" Clementine asked, astonished that Daryl was saying this.

"Clem…"

"No! They've gotta be around somewhere! Rick and Carl and Michonne and…"

Another gust of wind blew by, startling the two of them as the boards creaked around them. This was getting ridiculous. The two of them were out here stranded in the freezing cold night, stuck in a shed that smelled like shit and could easily be overrun by walkers at any given moment.

"Even if we could track them, we'd be like sitting ducks out in the open. Our best bet is to head out to Washington once those bastards have fixed you up."

Clementine bit her lip, and wondered whether or not Daryl would be too keen on the idea. "Have you ever thought about, I don't know, staying with these guys? Or at least asking to stay?"

"Hasn't exactly crossed my mind, no. I don't trust these people."

Clementine then muttered, "More like you don't trust Kenny…"

She hadn't meant for Daryl to catch on, but he did. "The guy's delusional, Clem – totally psychotic and unpredictable. He's gonna get somebody killed."

"You don't know him like I do, Daryl! He's not a bad guy! Sure he's made some bad choices, but he's doing the best he can!" Clementine protested, folding her arms over her chest.

Daryl shook his head in disagreement. "I know he's your friend and all, but I've seen guys like him before,"

"Where?" Clementine demanded.

"I grew up with 'em. Hell, I used to be like him too. Act first, think later. Didn't you tell me that he smashed that old guy's face in with a salt lick?"

Meanwhile, outside, everyone (including Kenny) had gone off to bed. They had put the fire out to prevent attracting any walkers that may have come by.

But nobody noticed the small army of undead beings crawling up to the surface of the water, hungry for fresh meat to chew on.

"I'm getting you patched up tomorrow, kid, and then I'm leaving for Washington right after. Now are you coming with me or not?" Daryl had just given the ultimatum, hoping that Clementine would cave. All she had to do was say yes and they'd be back on the road.

She mulled it over for a bit, and was about to give her answer until…

"Wragghhhh!" came an eerily creepy voice, and Clementine screamed as a walker grabbed onto her leg. Daryl quickly sprang into action and went to aim for a shot, but realized the angle was too off. If he tried to shoot it would hit Clementine instead.

There was no time to lose. Daryl frantically searched around the shed for anything that Clementine could use to kill the monster with, but the only thing he could find was a block of wood. He tossed it to the girl, and Clementine began beating the walker outside the head just before he was about to sink his teeth into her neck.

The blows were only slowing the beast down, so Clementine tried to squirm away to break free. Pushing with her left leg, she moved backwards on the floor and continued to hit with the wood. All of a sudden, the wood snapped in two and fell uselessly to the floor, and the walker clambered on top of Clementine, who screamed in horror again.

She was so sure that this was the end for her, and that she'd see Lee and her family on the other side.

But once again, that never came.

Daryl lurched his arrow through the walker's skull, sending it into a dead weight on top of Clementine almost instantly. He shoved it off of her and Clementine wrapped her arms around Daryl, shaking uncontrollably. They just stood there for a moment, silently, but also constantly prepared for another intruder on their domain. They would need to be prepared, it seemed, for another gargled noise came from outside… and then another…. And another.

"_Get back you bastards!" _came a voice from outside. Somebody must've heard the zombies coming, or at least heard Clementine's scream, because they could hear the loud sound of a gun going off in the distance.

"_Nick!_" the voice rang out again, pleading for help, "_Nick, get over here, damn it! The last thing we need is for anyone to get bitten! We need to stick together!"_

"_Yeah, like you care… Luke?! Where the fuck are you going?!_"

Suddenly, the latch on the door was opened, and in the doorway was the shadowy figure of Luke, his eyes fixed with worry.

"Please… we need help. I'm not sure we're gonna make it without you guys. There's lots of supplies and stuff you can take from the house, just help us kill these things!"

"You're gonna have to do better than that, sunshine," Daryl stated blandly, but Clementine yanked on his arm with a stern expression. Daryl sighed and told Luke to lead the way.

The three of them made their way back towards the campsite, and what greeted them was a scene straight out of hell.

Walkers were literally everywhere. A good chunk of them were trying to break through the front door of the cabin, while others were trying to tear Pete and Nick to pieces over by some of the tents. Luke started firing bullets into the heads of a couple of walkers that managed to sneak up on Pete, but Nick was having some trouble. His rifle was an old civil-war style gun, where it fired one bullet at a time and took a while to reload. Walkers were coming in faster than Nick could put them down.

"Where's everyone else?" Daryl asked, knifing a walker in the face and shoving him to the side.

Luke shot another three walkers and turned back towards them. "Carlos ran off with his daughter, Sarah, but Alvin and Rebecca are still inside. God, this is such bullshit. Rebecca's pregnant and we have to move her out into the wilderness."

"Where's Kenny?" Clementine asked the question that Daryl conveniently forgot to mention.

One of the walkers managed to break a glass window, and they were desperately trying to climb in all at the same time.

"Shit! He was inside with the rest of them. I told him to come help us, but he didn't even budge. We need to get everyone out of there before the walkers get to them first!"

"Alright. Clem and I'll clear the place out if we can. But we're getting the supplies we need first,"

"Sure, sure, whatever! Just please, get everyone out safely! We can't lose any more people!" Luke then ran over to help Nick and Pete, who were still trying to fend off the walker horde.

"He's telling us…" Daryl murmured as he and Clementine raced to the back entrance of the house, which (thankfully) the walkers hadn't gotten into yet.

The inside of this cabin was pretty much what you'd expect – wooden. All the walls, chairs and tables were made from trees, and there were various pictures adorning the walls. But this was no time for sightseeing. Daryl pulled out all the drawers in the kitchen to look for any sort of medical supplies, with Clementine doing the same with her good arm.

"Find anything yet?" Daryl asked, swearing as the next drawer he opened was just full of cooking utensils.

Clementine shook her head. "Nothing!"

"Ok, come on. Let's check upstairs, hurry!"

They ran out of the kitchen and into the main hall, when they were startled by the groan of a walker; its body halfway inside from the window. Daryl made short work of this as he plunged his knife into its forehead, and he wiped the monster's blood off with its own shirt. "You bloodied my knife," Daryl smirked.

Clementine had already run into one of the bathrooms before Daryl even made it back to the stairs. She scrounged around for some medicine, and to her relief she had found a bottle of antibiotics to prevent her arm from getting infected. She had also found a thread and needle to stitch up the wound, and was about to make her way out when she was stopped by Kenny in the doorway.

"Holy shit! Clem?! What the fuck are you doing in here? We need to go!" he yelled, grabbing her hand and leading her downstairs.

Clementine broke free before they got to the stairs, and she asked, "Where's Daryl?"

"No idea, but we need to get out of here now, Clem. This place is swarming with walkers!"

"Gee, I hadn't noticed," Clementine replied sarcastically, "we can't just leave him here! I'm checking the other rooms."

"Clementine!" Kenny called after her, but as she disappeared, Kenny sighed in frustration and followed her.

It was pretty difficult to navigate through the hallways in the dark, and not knowing what could be on the other side only made it worse. _'Why can't there be electricity…' _Clementine thought bitterly.

"I'll check this room, you check over there!" Clementine called out, and reluctantly Kenny obliged. He opened one of the doors very quietly, as to not alert anything inside.

What he saw was a sort of showdown between the redneck and two walkers, with the third walker having just started to eat Alvin's leg. His eyes were glazed over and he was lying motionless on the ground, dead. There was no sign of Rebecca anywhere, but right now he wasn't concerned about that.

He hadn't known Alvin very well, but Kenny knew that he was a decent man. They'd all have to mourn over his loss later though.

But did he really want to save the asshole that was going to get Clementine and himself killed?

Daryl looked over to Kenny and knew what was coming. He didn't even hear what Kenny said, but from the movement of his mouth he could tell what he meant.

"Sorry…"

The bookshelf that stood near the doorway was pushed over, and Kenny slammed the door behind him, locking Daryl inside with the walkers.

"Son of a bitch!" Daryl yelled out after him, but it was unlikely that he had heard him. Dodging a swipe from one of the walkers, Daryl made a beeline straight into its chest, knocking two of the walkers over like a couple of undead bowling pins. He struck his knife into the eye socket of one walker, but the blood had squirted up and gotten into Daryl's face. He quickly went to wipe the goo away with his arm, and nearly got bitten as a walker chomped down on Daryl's crossbow.

The man stumbled backwards in self-defence, still trying to wipe away the crimson liquid. A random cardboard box made him lose his balance and fall over, temporarily disorienting the man and giving the walker a chance to get back up.

Everything else seemed to be like a blur for Daryl. At one moment he had felt the weight of the undead bastard on top of him, and the next he was grappling with the beast for dear life.

Closer and closer its teeth got, barring and ready to rip the flesh from his bones. But Daryl Dixon had no intention of dying today. After all, he still had to find Clementine and the others, plus kick the shit out of Kenny when he finally found him. So instead of giving in, Daryl punched the walker straight in the face and grabbed a piece of glass from a broken window nearby. With all the strength he had left, Daryl thrust the shard into the walker's forehead, and tried to hide his face as more blood came spluttering down onto his body. Man, this stuff was nasty!

The man waited for the body to go limp before throwing it off and relaxing against the window ledge. He was completely drained – not just of energy, but of spirit as well. How the hell was he supposed to find Rick and their lot while also trying to track down Clementine? If things didn't seem bleak before, they sure as hell did now.

But then he remembered that there were three walkers in the room with him, not two. Sure enough, the third was sitting in the corner with Alvin, chowing down on his chest area now. His determination slowly started to come back, as he vowed that he wouldn't let that happen to the little girl he had found in the woods all that time ago.

Grabbing onto the ledge o steady himself, Daryl stumbled over to the walker, who made a gurgling noise as Daryl approached.

"Fuck off," he said blandly before shooting an arrow through its forehead and then taking it back out. Before he left the house, he stared down sadly at the mangled form of Alvin, all ripped open and dismembered to shreds.

"Sorry this happened to you, man," he murmured, closing the door behind him and running outside. As expected, everyone was gone, but the walkers were still trying to break through. _'That son of a bitch must've told everyone I was dead,' _Daryl thought with a grimace. What would Clementine be going through right now?

That thought alone got Daryl going, as he sprinted into the woods and out of sight, leaving a destroyed campsite with a bunch of undead monsters struggling to get a piece of anything inside.


	12. Misery Loves Company

"I reckon we've got four, maybe five days to reach those mountains, give or take,"

Exhaustion and depression will take a lot out of you, especially if you're only eleven years old. Once the cold harshness of your reality comes hitting you like a ton of bricks, you start to question what the point is of going on.

Clementine's world was crashing in around her, and no amount of coaxing from Pete or Luke was helping. The new girl (Sarah, she thought her name was) was trying so hard to become her friend, but the girl's innocent personality was starting to annoy the hell out of Clementine. Maybe if Carlos had actually taught her about the world instead of stuffing her away and pretending everything was normal, then they'd be able to get along. Instead, Clem ever so slightly made her way to the back of the group. She really didn't feel like talking to anyone right now anyway.

She and Kenny had found the rest of the group near a river just a little ways north of their campsite. He didn't answer any of her questions about what happened to Daryl – only that a group of walkers got him while he was trying to save Alvin. No condolences, no comfort, no nothing. It was almost like Kenny hadn't even acknowledged Daryl's existence. Kenny just blended into the rest of the group, and didn't say a word to Clementine for the rest of the day.

Feeling a slight squeeze on her shoulder, snapping her out of her thoughts, she turned to see Pete giving her a sympathetic grin. She tried to smile back, but it ended up being little more than a twitch before she stared ahead, trying her hardest not to cry. This was awful. Everyone she ever cared about was gone, and she had now been thrust into a new group without any say in the matter whatsoever.

Still, even though she wasn't a big fan of Carlos, Sarah, Nick or Rebecca, the other two seemed alright. Luke looked after his own people like Lee used to, and Pete was as rational and level-headed as they came. And besides, Clementine much preferred the company of strangers over being out on her own again.

"Carlos? Aren't you forgetting something?" Pete mentioned sternly, glancing down at the girl's arm. The doctor turned around and sighed. That whole ordeal with the walkers made Clementine's arm slip his mind.

"How's about we set up camp here tonight? We can see walkers coming for a long time in every direction, and we'll have one person on watch at all times. We'll shift in couple hours or so." Carlos suggested.

The rest of the group nodded without argument, too tired to question anything.

Motioning for her to sit on a fallen tree, Clementine winced slightly as she raised her sleeve up and over her wound. The bleeding had stopped a while ago, but the cut still stung, and Clementine gave a short gasp of pain as Carlos placed some peroxide over top.

"Here," Carlos mentioned to the girl as he finished stitching her up and placing a fresh bandage on, "this should stop an infection from spreading. If anything changes, let me know as soon as possible,"

"As long as you guys don't try to shoot me again… I'm still not bitten, you know," Clementine murmured, loud enough for Carlos to hear.

The doctor frowned slightly, shook his head and sighed. He rubbed his hand through his long, black hair and started to walk away, but something made him stop just before he left.

"Know this, girl…"

"It's Clementine."

"Fine, _Clementine,_" he started giving her a warning glance, "just remember: we filled our end of the bargain. You can stay with us as long as you chip in and contribute to the group. But if you cause any problems, you're gone. No warnings, no apologies."

Clementine stared at the man with a slightly grim expression on her face. Hadn't she proved already that she could kill walkers? What more could she possibly do to earn their trust after everything that happened?

_Later…_

That night, as almost everyone else (besides Luke, who had volunteered to take first watch) was asleep, Clementine stared up at the sky, making out some of the stars through the trees that blocked their view. This was nothing new, her not being able to sleep. She was so used to being on the run that somehow she managed to rest without sleeping for more than an hour at a time. Daryl once told her that he was the same way, sleeping with one eye open in case of any trouble.

Giving up on catching any rest whatsoever, Clementine quietly got up and tiptoed her way over to Luke, who was sitting in a lawn chair overlooking the area.

"Want some company?"

Luke nearly fell out of his chair, and Clementine giggled slightly. The boy seemed a little bit jumpy.

"Jesus, sorry Clem, I thought it was a walker for a second," he breathed out, adjusting himself back in the chair.

"Pretty sure walkers don't talk though," she replied smirking sadly.

Luke nodded his head and opened up another chair that they had scrounged from the cabin earlier. Plopping down into the seat, Clementine leaned back and gazed up at the sky once again. She never could get over how pretty the nighttime could be.

"So," Luke started, trying to break the silence, "are you from around here? Washington I mean."

"I live out in Georgia – well, used to live there I guess. I was hiding out in my treehouse in the backyard to get away from the walkers."

"That's smart," Luke complimented, eerily similar to the way Lee had said it all that time ago. "What happened to your family? If you don't mind me asking, of course."

Clementine looked down to the ground sadly, and out of the corner of her eye she saw that Luke had instantly regretted asking it. "My parents went out to Savannah for a vacation and left me with a babysitter… but they never came back."

"I'm so sorry. That couldn't have been easy…"

Shaking her head, Clementine continued. "It wasn't, but then somebody found me. He looked after me for a long time – teaching me a lot of important stuff. How to shoot a gun, how to survive out here…"

She then turned to look over at Luke. "We met up with Kenny and his family at a farm in Georgia, and then some more survivors later. We all looked out for each other, and things were going pretty smoothly,"

"Kenny told us he was with a group before, but he never really went into detail about it. We just assumed that they either all died or that he got separated from his group, and he really didn't seem like talking about it so we stopped asking him altogether. I just couldn't believe you were one of those survivors."

Something was definitely up with Kenny, but Clementine didn't know what. It could've just been grief for his family, but something just didn't make sense. Daryl would never trap himself in a room with walkers unless he absolutely needed to, and he certainly wouldn't do it to save Kenny. And why was she not emotionally distraught about losing him anyway? Had she become so hardened to this environment that all her feelings and emotions had turned stone cold… or was he still out there somewhere?

"That guy you were with… Daryl, I think his name was? Was he the man who taught you those things?" Luke asked suddenly, snapping her out of her trance.

Clementine shook her head sadly. "The man's name was Lee, and we stayed together for a little bit over a year. We went to Savannah together with Kenny and some others, but I ran off to try and find my parents. Some creepy man on my walkie-talkie told me he knew where they were, and he told me they were at this hotel called the Marsh House, so I went over there,"

Clenching her fists and furrowing her eyebrows in slight rage, Clementine continued. "But he lied to me… locked me up in one of the rooms and threatened Lee that something bad would happen if he didn't come. When Lee showed up, the stranger blamed him for everything he'd lost, and that he wasn't worthy to look after a kid. We ended up killing the guy and moved on…"

The entire time Luke was staring with a shocked expression. Clementine had gotten used to this, having told her story so many times. She just wished the story didn't always have such a horrible ending to it.

"I found my parents in the streets of Savannah… they didn't make it…" Clementine felt a few stray tears roll down her face, but quickly wiped them off with her sleeve. When Luke tried to say he was sorry, she interrupted with a raise of her hand. "Don't worry about it – there wasn't anything we could've done to stop it. I just wish things could've been different."

"Lee had collapsed in the street, so I brought him into a garage. His arm was gone, and he had told me that he cut it off since he was bitten. It didn't work…"

Looking over, Clementine realized that it actually felt good to talk about it with another person. Now that Daryl was gone, she really didn't have anybody left that she could actually trust and confide in. Maybe this Luke guy wasn't a bad candidate.

He scratched the back of his head sheepishly and replied, "Well, for what it's worth, I'm glad you got all fixed up. If you and your friend Daryl hadn't shown up when you did, I doubt we'd be speaking right now."

"Better than losing it," Clementine stated matter-of-factly, rubbing her fingers over the bandage.

Luke smirked and laughed a little bit. "You got that right – scars, they're way cooler than stumps."

An owl made its distinctive sound in the night, and the two of them sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the forest. It was still hard to imagine that life could go on even during the apocalypse. Clementine figured that maybe it was just nature's way of correcting itself. Lee had once told her about some of the great catastrophes of human history – including various plagues, wars and natural disasters that decimated parts of the human population. She remembered the conversation vividly, though she didn't quite understand it at the time:

"_How much do you know about World War Two?" Lee asked as they sat in one of the railway cars, watching with sad eyes as they travelled. Duck and Katjaa were dead, and everyone seemed to be a little more depressed than usual. Ben was keeping to himself with his head in his hands, having just told Lee that he was the one giving the bandits supplies. Chuck was at the front of the train, drinking a bottle of whiskey and giving a few sips to Kenny if he needed to._

"_Not much. Just that it was really bad and really scary. Why?"_

"_Well, you know how a lot of people died during the war, right?"_

_Clementine nodded, not sure where he was going with this._

_Lee wrapped an arm around her shoulders, giving a friendly squeeze as he continued. "Look at it this way. Just like how lots of people have died during this whole thing, millions of people died during that war. But you know what happened after? People came together and supported each other – rebuilding houses, tending to the injured and bringing displaced families back together again."_

"_Why are you telling me this?"_

"_I'm saying it 'cause we need to do the same. As long as we stick together and support each other, we're going to be alright. Humans have persevered and come back from death before, so why can't we do the same now? The thing is though, you've gotta believe that it'll happen. Hope is the strongest thing you've got in this world, and you can't let anything or anybody break that. You with me?"_

_Looking up at him with a slight grin, Clementine squeezed Lee's hand affectionately._

"_I'm with you, Lee."_

"I'm still with you, Lee," Clementine whispered the words into the air, letting them hang until they flew away.

Suddenly, the both of them turned their heads in response to a loud scream coming back from where the rest of the group was sleeping. Immediately they ran over to see what the problem was, and what they saw shocked them deeply.

Sprawled on the ground were Carlos and Sarah, both with huge bite marks and missing pieces of flesh from their bodies. Three now-dead walkers were lying on the ground beside them, but Clementine didn't care about that. She cared about the two people gasping in pain with terrified looks on their faces.

"Ugghhh… just hold on Sarah… ackkk! You're gonna be… okay…" Carlos breathed out heavily.

Sarah certainly didn't look okay, that was for sure. The walkers had taken a bite out of left arm and her neck, and blood was oozing out of the wounds. As for Carlos, his foot was hanging off his leg by a thread, and it looked as though his shoulder was bleeding as well.

"Please… save my daughter! There's gotta be something you guys can do!" Carlos pleaded, his eyes fixed heavily on the people that surrounded him. "Shoot me if you have to, just make sure Sarah lives! Please!"

"You know what has to happen, guys," Kenny said almost emotionlessly, though his facial features still showed some sign of humanity and remorse left on him.

"Woah, man! What the fuck?! We can't just kill them without at least trying to help! This is just a kid here!" Luke interjected angrily.

Pete was irate as well. "Carlos has gotta have some antibiotics in his pack over there! And we can just cut off his foot to stop the infection! I've seen people get through this!"

"Pete, Luke, I'm sorry, but wake the fuck up! You don't recover from this shit! I watched my kid die from a bite right in front of me, and even Clementine had to put her friend down just because he got bitten on the arm! This is more than that – we can't ignore this!" Kenny argued, his fists at his side.

This whole scene was like déjà vu to Clementine, as that time in the meat locker kept playing in her head. She intentionally blocked the image of her shooting Lee from entering her mind though, as that was the most painful experience she'd ever had to go through.

"Kenny… we don't want to pull another Larry here. Just calm down, ok?" Clementine asked as gently as she could, though her patience was wearing almost as thin as Kenny's was.

But Kenny just ignored the girl, pulled out his pistol, aimed….

And fired two bullets into the skulls of Sarah and Carlos, killing them on the spot.

Instantly, Pete lunged out at Kenny, punching him square in the jaw about five times before being held back by Luke and Nick. Rebecca was huddled over by the two bodies, silently weeping for her fallen friends. Kenny fell backwards with the force of Pete's last punch, and looked over at Clementine with pleading eyes, but she was having none of it.

Clementine thought she was living in the company of a monster, even though deep down she knew they would only die and come back as walkers. It wasn't the fact that Kenny made the tough choice that infuriated her, though. That part she was used to by now. It was the fact that he shot them without any hesitation or even acknowledging the rest of the group's input.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Pete screamed, rage and hunger for Kenny's blood clear in his eyes. "I'LL KILL YOU! I SWEAR TO GOD YOU'RE SO DEAD, YOU HEAR ME?! DEAD!"

The man wasn't fazed. He had always said that he ended up making the tough calls, and that he always ended up looking like the bad guy. But to him, that was how you survived in this world. That was how he kept himself and the others safe. But this time, at least for the moment, it seemed that nobody else was ever going to believe that.

"Umm, everything okay here?" came a voice from behind one of the trees.

Clementine turned around, and out stepped a face she hadn't expected to see in a million years.

As soon as he saw Clementine's face, Glenn dropped his machine gun and collapsed to his knees. 


	13. Over the edge

"Kenny? Can I talk to you for a second?"

He turned towards Luke, glaring a whole straight through his eyes.

"Why?" he asked incredulously, "So you can give your condolences before tossing me out? Or are you guys just gonna take a bat to my skull?"

'_Better than a salt lick in the head,' _Clementine thought, disturbed by that grizzly scene.

Things at the camp were… tense, to say the least. Clementine hated when this happened, and unfortunately it happened quite a bit. Before it was always Kenny and Lily arguing about how to run the group, with Lee caught in the middle. She just hoped she wouldn't have to pick sides this time (though truth be told, she'd probably side with Luke. The way Kenny had been acting lately was really concerning). It was difficult to remember the happy, charismatic man that Clementine had met when they first arrived on Herhsel's farm over a year ago. Here now was an empty man, no emotion but anger and regret, whose only goal in life was to survive. She hoped that that wouldn't happen to her someday.

"You okay?" Glenn asked, and Clementine had almost forgotten that he had showed up last night. It was completely out of the blue. But what was even more surprising was that he had been at the prison with the rest of Rick's group the entire time, but he'd been sick so he was quarantined with the rest of the sick folks in a different section of the prison.

The girl nodded her head but stared sadly at Pete, who was sitting pitifully on the ground with Nick folding his arms behind him.

"There was no cause for that…" Clementine mentioned, shaking her head and pointing over to the graves of Carlos and Sarah, which she'd helped dig up last night. "We all knew they were going to die, but not like that. Kenny's starting to scare me."

"Same," Glenn agreed, "I tried to talk to him last night, but all he did was give me a glare and walked off. I'm pretty sure he was swearing under his breath, and it was probably something racist, but he seemed weird… kind of like what happened to Shane…"

"Daryl said something about him. That he and Rick used to be best friends but Shane did something really bad, and Rick had to kill him. Is that true?"

Nodding again, Glenn chucked a stone over the hill. "He got pretty messed up, let's just say that."

Despite all the sadness surrounding them, the weather couldn't have been better. There were a few puffy, white clouds rolling in, but they were few and far between. The forest was teeming with life and sound, and Clementine swore that she had seen a mother deer with her child running across the hill, but she couldn't be sure.

"Perfect day to go for a supply run, eh?" Glenn asked, standing up and pulling Clementine up as well.

About forty minutes later, Glenn and Clementine were standing outside an abandoned drug store, not too far from the campsite. Clementine actually laughed – it reminded her and looked really similar to the Everett store back in Macon!

"I hope there aren't any walkers in there this time…" Clementine murmured, holding out a flashlight in one hand and a gun in her other.

Glenn was at first a little surprised that she was able to shoot, but then realized that Lee must've taught her in case anything happened. Turns out it did, but Glenn never asked about it.

Quickly, he opened the front door and the two of them got to work. Clementine ran her flashlight over the fallen shelves and picked up anything they could use (not that there was much). Tylenol, cough medicine, throat lozenges… it was like this place was entirely untouched! There were even energy bars and sport drinks sprawled on the floor. Clementine also found a fridge, but the stuff in there had mostly gone bad, and it wasn't worth trying to cook expired meat or produce.

But the girl couldn't understand… why was this place so abandoned? This drug store was a gold mine, for goodness sake! She lifted up her pack (the same one she'd found in that house a few weeks back) and grunted at how heavy it was now.

"Glenn?" she called out, scanning the darkened room for any sign of her long-lost friend. She climbed over a fallen display case, turned a corner and found him looking very nervous leaning against a doorframe.

"Do me a favour – don't go back there."

"Why?"

"Just don't," Glenn said bluntly, turning his head to a window not too far from where they were standing. "Okay, on the count of three, we run over there and get out as fast as we can, okay?"

"Umm, ok,"

"Good, one…" Glenn started, looking super nervous and having sweat pouring onto his forehead.

"Two…"

"Glenn? Are there dead guys in there-"

"_THREE!_" he exclaimed, launching himself from the door and running with Clementine over to the window. Instantly, a group of about thirteen walkers broke through the door, slowly marching over to the pair of dinners.

Struggling with opening the window, Glenn cursed and looked at Clementine. "It's jammed!"

"What do we do now?" Clementine asked, trying (and failing) to slow down a walker by throwing a shopping basket at its head.

"Stand back," Glenn warned, taking out a hammer and swinging it with all the force he could muster up. The window shattered into a million pieces, and Clementine had to cover her face to prevent any loose shards from hurting her.

"Ladies first," Glenn motioned, but Clementine wasn't amused right now.

"No time for manners, Glenn!"

"Suit yourself," Glenn said, and Clementine was about to ask what he meant, but he scooped her into one of his arms and unceremoniously tossed her out onto the street. He then followed suit, landing on the ground beside her.

They'd have time to laugh about that little stunt later. Right now though, they needed to get back to the others, or at least as far away from the walkers as possible.

"Good thing they're not very smart," Clementine commented, pointing over to the dead creatures all trying to climb towards them at once.

"Let's not test that," Glen replied dryly, picking up his bag and starting down the road, Clementine following behind him.

Along the way, Clementine had gotten to know Glenn a little bit better. They didn't really talk that much back in Macon, aside from when he talked to her over the walkie talkie. She found out about the job he used to have as a pizza delivery guy, and how much of a dickhead his boss used to be. But the most interesting thing for Clementine was that he and Maggie were together.

"Aww, that's so cute! Can I be the flower girl?" she asked enthusiastically. Geez, this kid's happiness was contagious.

Glenn chuckled heartily and smiled. "I'm not so sure there'll even be a wedding, kiddo. I can't exactly go to the store and buy a tux now can I?"

"Well it doesn't need to be fancy! Just find someone to be the guy who talks at the front when you're getting married… what's it called…"

"Pastor?"

"Yes!" Clementine exclaimed, snapping her fingers. "Just get someone to be a pastor and find another ring for you to wear! Hmm… I guess we'd need to find out where to have your wedding though…"

Glenn frowned suddenly, the cold reality slapping him back in the face like a bucket of water.

"I need to find her first. Make sure she's alive…"

Falling silent, Clementine had a little bit less of a spring in her step. She felt slightly regretful that she had brought this up now. For all they knew, Maggie could've very well been dead. Just like Daryl…

They soon arrived back at the camp, but the only people they saw were Luke and Nick sitting near the fire pit, which deeply concerned Clementine. Where were Kenny, Pete and Rebecca?

"Looks like you two went grocery shopping," Luke smirked at them, admiring how much stuff they brought with them. Hell, even Nick was fairly impressed.

"What can I say? We make a pretty good team," Glenn complimented, wrapping an arm around Clementine's shoulder.

It was nice at times to think that not everyone was dead or just flat out crazy in this world. Clementine hoped for once, just for once, that nothing would go wrong today. She'd had enough of killing, and if another person died today, she was pretty sure she'd break down.

But this was the zombie apocalypse, and since when has anything gone her way?

It started at dinner that night. Clem, Glenn, Luke, Nick, Rebecca, Pete and Kenny were all seated around the fire pit, roasting a pack of marshmallows that Glenn had found in the drug store. Only a handful of them held their treat out over the flames – everyone else either had their head in their hands or were watching Pete and Kenny. So basically, Glenn was the only one roasting marshmallows that night.

Pete occasionally shot a glance over at Kenny, but every time he did, he'd grunt angrily and then go back to whatever he was looking at to distract him. Kenny never took his eyes off the embers at the bottom of the pit, occasionally stirring them to keep it going. Clementine was worried one of them was going to snap. One wrong move and it would be the breaking point.

To pass the time, Clementine drew in the dirt with her stick, making little stick figures of Lee, Daryl and her parents. Nobody else would be able to recognize this though. Every now and then, she would catch a glimpse of Luke trying to say something to her, but he would just close his mouth and fall silent. Nick held out a bottle of whiskey and took a sip of the alcohol, and then he passed the drink around in a circle.

Luke took a small gulp, and Clementine laughed quietly as he made a disgusted face and turned towards her.

"You're up, Clem," he gestured.

Glenn looked slightly horrified. "She's eleven dude!"

"Never stopped me before…" Nick murmured, getting a smirk from Luke.

"Come on man, it's not like it's the end of the world. Lighten up a bit."

"What are you talking about?!" Glenn said, exasperated.

Examining the green bottle held in front of her, Clementine took it in her hands. She took a sniff of it and wrinkled her nose back.

"Go on," Nick encouraged, "There's always a first for everything!"

Slowly, Clementine tilted her head back and opened her mouth, letting the liquid fall down in. Almost as soon as the alcohol reached her taste buds, she spit it back out, getting some on Luke's sleeve. Everyone laughed (even Kenny gave a slight chuckle) as Clementine rubbed her mouth with her sleeve and tried to get rid of any remaining aftertaste.

"How do grown-ups drink that stuff? It's gross!" she exclaimed.

Rebecca took the bottle from her hands and without a second thought she chugged part of it down.

"Umm, Rebecca? I'm no expert, but isn't it a bad idea to drink while you're pr-"

"_Who asked you?!_" Rebecca hissed at Clementine, whose eyes widened in fright. She knew that Rebecca could be grumpy sometimes, but not over a drink. Something else must have been bugging her… probably that Alvin had recently passed away. It wouldn't be a good idea to retaliate right now or anytime soon.

"Alright, I'd say it's about time we all turned in for the night. Lights out, everybody," Luke announced, throwing a large pile of dirt onto the fire to put it out.

Once again, Clementine couldn't sleep. There was just so much going on in her mind. What was Kenny going to do? Was Glenn going to try and find the rest of the prison group? Were they safe out in the open like this? But most of all…

What the hell was she going to do?

In her mind, Clementine had two options. She could either leave with Glenn when he brought it up and try to find Rick and the others, or he could stick it out with Luke and his group. At the moment, she was leaning heavily towards just traveling with Glenn, but she felt pretty bad about leaving Luke, Pete, and heck, even Nick behind. Rebecca didn't seem to give a crap about her, so that wasn't an issue.

By the condition he was in, there was no way she was going to set off with Kenny. The man was completely delusional if he thought she'd travel alone with him. Lee would've been disgusted with his behaviour.

So why did she feel so bad about leaving him?

Sleep claimed the girl a little bit later, her curious mind having become drained with the thoughts swimming around in her head. She dreamed about her parents and her old home, now long lost to the apocalypse. When she awoke, she thought about that house, and whether it was actually still intact. She imagined that bandits must have cleaned the place out by now. Not that there was much left to take however; it's not like there was much use for a television these days.

Clementine sat up in her sleeping bag, rubbing her eyes as she adjusted to the daylight. There wasn't much today though, as the clouds were covering most of the area in grey. Pretty soon it would rain, and they would need to relocate to a dryer shelter. Glenn and Nick were snoring on either side of her, as Luke and Pete were snoozing in their sacks on the other side of the pit.

But where were Kenny and Rebecca?

"_And why exactly do you think leaving now is going to do any fuckin' good?!_"

Oh no….

Clementine stood up and crept silently past the rest of the group to trace the sound of Rebecca and Kenny arguing. Again.

God's sakes, this was like Lily all over again!

"Would you keep your god-damned mouth shut, Rebecca? You want everyone to hear ya? Besides, it's not like you guys need or _want _me around anymore – I can see it on your faces! So yeah, I'm leaving."

"Where would you go then?"

Clementine listened carefully to their conversation, hiding behind a picnic table to keep her from being spotted.

She heard Kenny sigh heavily, but couldn't make out what he muttered to Rebecca next. She'd never know where Kenny wanted to go, what he planned to do with his life. Because this is the last time that she would ever see the father of Duck, the husband to Katjaa, and the friend to Lee.

"You are fuckin' crazy! We don't need this shit, Kenny! You aren't going anywhere!" Rebecca yelled.

Peeking over the table, Clementine widened her eyes, as the next few seconds didn't seem to be real.

"You're not stopping me, Rebecca."

"Maybe not, but we'll see what the rest of the group thinks," with that, she turned her back on the man and started back towards the camp, catching Clementine hiding behind the table.

At that moment, the whole world stood still.

"What the hell are you doin-"

_BANG! BANG! BANG! _

Rebecca hobbled forwards and stayed still, her eyes glazing over and the smoke from Kenny's pistol still fresh out of the barrel.

She didn't even get a chance to run before Kenny roughly grabbed hold of her shoulder. Kicking and screaming for help, Kenny tried to muffle her with his other hand, only to yelp in pain as she bit into her finger, drawing blood.

Unfortunately, Kenny had been hurt a lot worse before than a simple bite in his finger. Clementine was surprised how strong the man's grip was, what with him being so scrawny from a lack of food over the months.

"I'm sorry for this, Clem. Forgive me, but this is how it has to be," he stated casually, almost too coldly.

"You're better than this, Kenny! Please! I know you, and this… this isn't you!" she tried to reason, desperately trying to break free but not getting anywhere.

The older man suddenly let out series of mirthless chuckles, but Clementine didn't understand why. He wasn't even looking at her anymore, but why?

"You can come out now, you son of a bitch! I ain't hidin' – come out and face me so I can kill you a second time!"

What in the world was he talking about?

She hadn't asked herself that question soon enough before a shadowy figure stepped out from the darkness, holding – what else? – a crossbow.

"Daryl!" Clementine exclaimed with a mixture of delight, confusion, fear and anxiety. How was this possible? And what did Kenny mean he'd kill him a _second time_?

Daryl said nothing as he stepped forward, never releasing his aim of the crossbow at Kenny, his eyes calm and focused on his prey.

"You know deep down I'm better for her than you! Look at all the shit she's gone through with you! Car crash, prison wars, walker attacks…" Kenny went on, his bushy mustache twitching.

"Holding her at gunpoint isn't doing you any favours, man. Just let her go and we'll put this all behind us." Daryl reasoned, eyeing the pistol that Kenny had aimed dangerously close to Clementine's skull.

Surprisingly, Clementine didn't feel afraid. Deep down she really didn't think Kenny would shoot her, so she too tried to calm him down. "Kenny, come on. What would Katjaa and Duck say if they saw this?"

Immediately, Kenny's grip on Clementine tightened, almost choking her, but soon after the grip softened, and she let out a large gasp of air. Looking up at Kenny's face, Clementine noticed that almost all the anger had dissipated. Replacing it was a mixture of guilt, sadness and regret.

"You… you're right, Clem. God, I've been letting this shit storm get the better of me over the year."

Kenny released Clementine, but his gaze returned to Daryl.

"But it looks like one of us has to die. We can't go on together, not after all this shit," he slowly raised his pistol towards him, and gestured over to him. "Raise your weapon! I ain't holding anything back! Do it!"

A bullet whizzed by Daryl's head, but it sunk its way into the bark of the tree behind him. Clementine knew this was the end, that Kenny had missed the shot on purpose. He wanted to join his family in death, after such a long time of waiting.

The bolt soared through the air, plunking its way into Kenny's chest as he ricocheted backwards, his eyes going wide and his hands clutching where the arrow had pierced his heart. He fell backwards, uttering one final cry of pain, before falling over the rock formations and out of sight.


End file.
